


Awake

by peacehopeandrats



Category: Awake (TV), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Awake (TV) - Freeform, Crime, F/M, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hyperion Heights (Once Upon a Time), Storybrooke (Once Upon a Time)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2020-08-20 03:33:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 58,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20221105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacehopeandrats/pseuds/peacehopeandrats
Summary: Detective Weaver works for the Seattle P.D and lives with his son, Gideon. Together the two are slowly coming to terms with the loss of Belle, Weaver's wife and Gideon's mother. In therapy Weaver confesses to experiencing some strange sleeping patterns. He goes to bed at night and closes his eyes, but opens them to find himself in a different home... one he shares with Belle.Mister Gold owns a pawn shop and lives with his wife, Belle. Together the two are slowly coming to terms with the loss of their son, Gideon. In therapy Gold confesses to experiencing some strange sleeping patterns. He goes to bed at night and closes his eyes, but opens them to find himself in a different home... one he shares with Gideon.This story borrows the plot concept from the TV show Awake (staring Jason Isaacs) and adapts it to Once Upon a Time, but is NOT a crossover. (More on this in the notes.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was recently watching Awake and said to myself "This SCREAMS Rumplestiltskin. Someone needs to make a fanfic where Rumple is awake as Weaver and awake as Gold!" So I did just that. 
> 
> If you don't know the premise of Awake: Detective Michael Britten has had a car accident where his wife is killed, BUT when he goes to sleep at night he closes his eyes and opens them to find himself living in a world where his son survived the accident and his wife passed away. The crimes he faces in one reality link to something in the other reality and he uses this dual life to not only spend time with the person he lost, but also to solve the cases he is assigned. Both realities seem real, and both have therapists that insist their reality is the one in which he is awake.
> 
> I'm not marking my story as a crossover with Awake because it only uses the basic ideas, not any of the characters or plots. If you have seen Awake and know the ending, be aware that this isn't necessarily going to end the same way, so be prepared for anything... including for the story to eventually be canon.

Chapter 1 

* * Weaver * *

Weaver drummed his fingers on the side of his shoe while his foot bounced slightly on his knee. He instantly realized the action would be seen as a release of nerves, so he uncrossed the leg and moved his hands to the armrests of his chair instead, running his palms along their length as if testing the quality of the upholstery.

The woman sitting across from him looked up from her notepad with a neutral smile that meant nothing to him. “How have you been, Detective?”

He shrugged. “Fine.”

A twitch came to the corner of the woman's mouth, the one tick she allowed herself, a movement that meant she knew he was only saying what she wanted to hear, but wasn't going to confront him about it. 

“You said you weren't sleeping before,” she reminded him. “Has that been any easier in the last few weeks?”

Weaver sighed and turned to stare out the window in an attempt to keep himself from rolling his eyes at her. “I never said I wasn't sleeping,” he retorted bruskly.

She glanced down at her pad. “The last time we met you told me that you lie down and close your eyes, but when you open them you are somewhere else, living a different life..” It was clear that she was reciting from the notes in her lap. When she finally looked up at him again she gave him that emotionless smile. “Is that still happening?”

He thought about lying for just long enough that he gave himself away. 

“Detective Weaver, you do realize that in order to continue your position with the Seattle P.D., I have to give you a clean bill of emotional health...”

Weaver scowled at her. “And what is your opinion of my 'emotional health,' Doctor Gorman?”

With a sigh, she sat back in her own chair and regarded him thoughtfully. Behind her, the unusual ceramic star that adorned her desk aligned with her head to make it seem as if her hair were held in place by crystalline spikes. The visual was both unnerving and ridiculous, and for the hundredth time he wondered if she was unaware of the alignment, or if it was a purposeful choice meant to lighten the mood of her patients. If she intended for _him_ to find it amusing, she had failed miserably. 

“Losing a loved one is hard enough on its own,” she told him gently, “but to nearly lose another and to blame yourself for the accident that caused the loss... That is all quite a lot to process.”

“Tell me something I haven't heard before,” Weaver barked at her, wishing she would just get on with it. He was either going back to work or would be forced into another appointment in a week's time, where he would hear all of the same things regurgitated back at him.

Again she glanced down at her notes, a frown growing on her face as she concentrated on two months worth of words piled in her lap. “Other than this second reality that you claim to be experiencing in your dreams, I don't see any reason to keep you from your duties,” she said at last. “I can have you back to work by the end of the week.”

Weaver nodded sharply, relief sweeping over him as he took in a long breath. “Good.” He rose from the seat, seeing no need to continue their appointment if the decision was made, but she held out her hand between them, somehow halting his movement and freezing him in an awkward half-crouch.

“I do want to see you back again,” she told him.

The detective dropped back to the chair with a muffled thud. “Why, exactly? You just cleared me for work.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder as if the decision was something tangible hovering just behind him.

“These dreams that you are having speak to some things that you haven't resolved yet.”

Weaver shook his head. “I told you, they're not dreams. I go to bed here and close my eyes, then open them and I'm somewhere else.”

“Living with your wife,” she reminded him.

He nodded. “That's right.”

“Detective, your wife died in that car accident.”

“And my son didn't,” he grumbled. “_Here_ he's alive.” Weaver stabbed his finger into the arm of the chair, pressing so hard that his skin was instantly whitened from the pressure. “A day with my son is as real as a day with my wife. Everything I think and feel and experience is as sharp and solid in one place as it is in the other.”

Doctor Gorman leaned forward. “Which tells me that you can't differentiate between your dream and reality.”

Weaver stood and moved to where his coat hung on the hook by the exit. “Let me ask _you_ something... How do you know you aren't asleep right now?”

This brought a smile to the woman's face. “I promise you, Detective, this is _not_ a dream.”

“Funny,” Weaver grunted as he donned his coat and reached for the door. “That's the same thing my _other_ doctor said.” Without a word of goodbye, he left the office.

* *

Outside the air was heavy with the chill of an approaching autumnal season. Weaver shivered as he encased himself inside his jacket. The leather was more than armor against the cold, he could almost feel it seal him away from the interview he had just walked out of.

“Papa?” 

The call brought an instant smile to Weaver's face, it always did. He looked up the street and saw his son, tall and slender, hand raised in the air as if his form alone wasn't easy enough to spot from one corner to the next. Picking up his pace, he crossed the distance between them and pulled the young man into a tight embrace. “I thought you had class.”

“I did, but I wanted to be here in case...” The words trailed off into the breeze and Gideon tilted his head. “Did you pass?”

Weaver nodded. “I did.”

Gideon beamed and flung himself at his father, squeezing him tight enough to press the air out of his lungs. “That's great news! When do you go back?”

“Within a week.” Weaver forced the words out, exaggerating the strength in his son's embrace just to get a laugh from him. Once he was released and the two were headed to the car, he filled in more details. “I'm sure I'll hear from the Captain soon enough, but that pesky little gnat still wants to keep seeing me.”

“Why?” His son had frozen in place, half reaching for the handle to the car door, his eyes wide with concern. 

Weaver gave a weak smile and shook his head. “Nothing you need to worry about. Protocol or something,” he lied. The psychiatrist was the only one he had confessed his strange experiences to. Well, this one _and_ the one in his other life. The confessions had been forced on him by circumstance when both Doctor Gorman and the male Doctor Hopper, who had been assigned to him in the other reality, caught his stumbling responses to questions about rest and sleep. He hadn't been able to keep up the ruse of normalcy for either of them for more than fifteen minutes and so the dual realities had been revealed. Weaver had felt a weight lifted from him the moment each reality had come out in the open. At least a therapist would accept that sort of nonsense as some quirk of the mind that could be explained away. He doubted anyone else would.

“Well... I guess that makes sense,” Gideon finally decided as he slid into the driver's seat of their new car. “I mean, _I_ still talk to someone...” He reached out as his father sat beside him and grabbed the man's hand, squeezing it tightly. “Things like this...” The words floated between them, fading away into something that didn't really need to be said.

“The important thing,” Weaver told him, squeezing back, “is that we have each other.”

This lifted the sadness from Gideon's expression, but didn't quite take it from his eyes. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “We do.”

* *

That night, when the dishes had all been washed and their small townhouse locked up for the night, Weaver climbed the stairs with the tender dedication of a father who didn't want to disturb his son. Gideon was newly cemented into his first year of college and needed all of the rest he could get, but tonight a warm glow spilled into the hallway that made Weaver poke his head into his son's room.

“Still up?”

Gideon glanced up from his work. “I have an essay due tomorrow.”

Weaver nodded and crossed the distance between them to plant a kiss on the top of his son's head. He imagined the action would make any other man his age cringe, but their family had always been one of physical contact and support. Kisses and hugs were never shrugged off between them. “I'll leave you to it.... But I think you'll do fine.” He patted Gideon's shoulder and moved to the hallway. “Don't stay up too late,” he added as he moved to his own room.

Gideon's promise to get some sleep mingled uneasily with the reality of his father's situation. Here Weaver was, reminding his son of the importance of sleep, when he knew good and well that the minute his own eyes were closed sleep would not come. Or at least, it didn't feel as if it would come. One moment he would be here, in the cramped space he shared with his son in Seattle and the next he and his wife would be happily living together in the biggest house on their street, in a small town in Maine. Weaver _knew_ he wasn't going to sleep, he was going to visit his lost love. As he changed into his night clothes and settled under the covers, he wondered if that made him a hypocrite.

* * Gold * * 

Gold's eyes flew open almost as soon as they were shut. A warm light drifted in from behind the distant curtains, but its beauty paled in comparison to the form curled up beside him. With a contented sigh he wrapped his arms around his wife and pulled her tightly against him, causing a sleepy moan to escape her. In a world where he could make his own work hours, these lazy mornings were some of his favorite moments.

He remembered being Weaver, a detective with the Seattle police, every detail as sharp in his mind as if it had just happened here. But it hadn't happened here. Gold's house was on the other side of the country, where he and his wife ran both a pawn shop and the small, local library. The lives of Weaver and Gold couldn't be more dissimilar and yet almost all of the people in them were the same, though they were playing different parts. The only true similarities were Gideon and Belle and the fact that he could only have one of them at a time.

“What time did you plan to open today?” Belle's murmured words were barely audible over the rustle of she sheets as she rolled over to face him.

“I was just about to get up,” Gold told her.

Belle's eyes opened suddenly as a pout spread across her face. “Now?” 

“I thought you were sleeping,” Gold teased. “If you wanted to sleep in...” He let the words trail off as he pulled her closer, the feel of her skin against him making his body come alive with obvious desire.

Belle hummed with contentment and draped one leg over his hip. “I could stay in bed a while,” she whispered before kissing him briefly. “Do you have to see Doctor Hopper today?”

“I do, but not for a few hours,” he answered against her neck, between feather light kisses. “Plenty of time to get some more rest.”

At this, a playful giggle rose out of Belle who rolled onto her back and pulled him along with her. “Who said I wanted to rest?”

* *

“So, these dreams...” Doctor Hopper glanced down at the notes in his lap before lifting a genuinely cheerful smile up to Gold. “You said they take place somewhere else?”

Gold sighed out a “yes.” He didn't understand why either of the therapists couldn't just move on from this. If they were going to declare his experiences to be dreams and not a form of mental breakdown, then why did they _both_ have to keep rehashing this every week?

“And they are frustrating you?”

“No,” Gold barked. “This repetitive conversation is frustrating me.”

The other man's smile softened, but didn't lose any of the feeling behind it. He sat back and crossed a leg over his knee, taking on a relaxed and casual pose. “Normally dreams are part of the way we cope with the kind of loss you have experienced. By looking at them, I can get an idea of how you are managing things in your daily life and try to help you through the feelings that have you caught up in this other world you created...”

“I didn't _create_ it.” Gold felt his eyes narrow and his face harden against the accusation. 

Hopper let out a sigh. “If we are going to assume that our time here is real, then, logically, we must assume that your other life is some kind of subconscious fabrication.”

“If you are implying that I _want_ my wife dead-”

“No, no, of course not.” The therapist raised his hands in a placating gesture and his tone changed to one of sincere apology. “I simply mean that you have held some guilt over the accident itself, an accident where you might have lost both your wife and your son... That kind of emotion could have caused you to create a reality somewhere deep within your subconscious where you can still be with Gideon.”

“And for some reason I wouldn't include the love of my life in this reality?” Gold huffed and tugged at the jacket of his suit to give himself something to do.

The corners of Hopper's mouth twitched upward, then flattened again. “Well, that's what we are trying to work through with these sessions,” he said. “To bring your mind some kind of peace with the reality of what you are facing.” He sighed and leaned forward, setting his notes and pen down on the small table between them, his eyes focused only on his patient. “The best way to live your happiest life from here on out is to integrate the feelings you have closed off _in_ to the life you have now, with Belle. Doing that might even help you release some of the memories you lost since the accident.”

Gold closed his eyes and took in a long, steadying breath to prevent himself from knocking the annoyingly chipper man out of his chair. “I don't need to know what my life was like before the accident,” he said flatly. “I had Gideon. I had Belle. We were happy together. That's all I need to know.”

“Don't you want to remember how you and your wife met? How you fell in love?” It was an honest question, tinted with the slightest hint of sorrow and concern. 

It was true that the cloud of his past was thicker than fog rolling in off the water, but for some reason that Gold couldn't explain, the absence of his history seemed perfectly normal. Gold felt as if he had always known Belle, as if they had always lived in their house together and never anywhere else. The shop had always been his, the library hers, and their lives had always been entwined. The concept of having parents or a childhood simply wasn't a thing his brain could fathom, but was that so horrible? No one else in Storybrooke spoke of their lives before the present day, why did he have to be the only one to pull these memories to the surface? “Belle and Gideon are all that I will ever need,” he said finally. “Anything that happened before they entered my life is meaningless.”

“I wouldn't say so,” Doctor Hopper answered, undoubtedly trying to be encouraging.

“Do _you_ remember the details of your childhood?” Gold raised an eyebrow and sent an accusatory stare in the therapist's direction.

“This hour isn't about my childhood,” Hopper said immediately.

At this, Gold pushed himself from the chair he had occupied for the last half of an hour and glared down at the man who had kept him there. “That's what I thought,” he huffed before heading to the door.

“You still have some time, Mister Gold,” the doctor called after him.

Gold turned and snarled at him “Oh, no,” he said angrily. “We're done.” Without another thought he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

“Thirty minutes?” Belle's cheerful voice greeted him as he crossed the threshold of the office into the waiting area. She was the only one in the small room and came quickly to wrap her arm over his so that they could leave together. “That's a new record.”

Gold huffed as she pressed against him, feeling her very presence release the anger he knew had been about to erupt inside. “It was all the same as before, incessant chatter for no reason,” he told her as they left.

Belle stretched herself up to plant a light kiss on his cheek. “You know, you _might_ find the reason if you stayed for your full hour? Doctor Hopper has been very kind and helpful on my visits.”

“I'm keeping my weekly appointments,” Gold playfully reminded her. “You made me promise to _see_ him. Our little deal didn't specify how _long_ I had to sit there and listen to his constant chirping.”

“Hm...” She tipped her head to the side in thought. “No... But I might have to amend it to include an extra... incentive to stay for a full session?”

An amorous chuckle rumbled inside of Gold's chest, unbidden. “Sounds like a fair exchange.” As he lead the way down the street to their shop, he contemplated all of the things he could get away with under this new, and very intriguing, lover's contract. “But I think the payment should be accumulative. Small rewards for small steps and … larger ones for the full hour?”

“I suppose thirty minutes might be worth a little something...” Belle grinned up at him as he unlocked and opened the shop's door. “But next week you have to pay the full price...”

Gold brought his body against Belle's and used his own momentum to guide her into the shop and trap her against the door's frame. He barely had time to move from the entry before her arms were wrapped around his neck and her lips were forcing his own apart.

Outside there was a shuffle and a polite cough, almost lighter than a breeze. 

Belle was the first to break the kiss, turning her head to greet their customer. “Mother Superior...”

Reward now lost to him, Gold stepped back to allow this reality's version of Doctor Gorman to enter, gesturing at the interior of the shop with an outstretched arm. “Do come in,” he told her with as much polite cheer as he could muster while also trying to calm his body into a state that was a little more presentable. As the woman entered he flipped the store's sign from “closed” to “open” and watched as Belle deftly guided her to a counter to begin a sale.

“Is there anything specific we can do for you?” His wife asked politely.

“I hope so.” Mother Superior lifted a bag and set it on the counter in front of her. “This has been decorating the reading room of our home for years,” she explained, tipping the contents onto the glass surface. The pieces within made the telltale clinking sound of china as they rattled out into the world. “I was told you offered repair services and hoped you might be able to restore it.”

Gold stepped closer and lifted one of the objects to examine the edges, then chose another by instinct, instantly fitting the two shapes together. “It shouldn't be too much trouble, he told her. The breaks seem to be clean enough...” He found two more pieces and arranged them in place, not certain at first why the form seemed so familiar to him, but gradually finding the familiarity somewhere in his mind until he almost cried out with the realization. “It's the star.”

Mother Superior blinked up at him, clearly confused. In this reality he would have had no reason to recognize her personal belongings, since he never set foot inside the shared home of the nuns, but in the other reality he had seen this object every week since the accident. “It is,” she said at last as she watched him quickly assemble the intricate shape before her eyes as if it were a puzzle he had pieced together a thousand times. “It's only a trinket, of course, but it has been in my family for generations...”

The words trailed off as Gold's hands stilled over the temporarily reunited fragments. There, in front of them, lay a perfect replica of the blue china star that adorned the desk of Doctor Gorman's Seattle office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the choice of name for Weaver's therapist... The given name Gormán means "little blue one."


	2. Chapter 2

* * Gold * *

“Have you been going to see the nuns without telling me?” Belle's words danced on the air, teasing him as Gold shut the door behind a grateful Mother Superior.

He turned a confused frown her way, the accusation raising his hackles for no real reason. “What business would I have with _them_?”

Belle shrugged as she carefully moved the ceramic pieces into a storage box for safe keeping until they could be worked on. “You seemed to recognize this.”

“I...” Gold thought about his words carefully before continuing. His dreams had never crossed before, but here was this single item that existed in both of his lives, owned by one person with two different names and two completely different backgrounds. The star's arrival was so unsettling that he almost gave thought to returning to Doctor Hopper and finishing his session. Almost. He wasn't quite ready to admit that the curiosity held any meaning behind it and his therapist would undoubtedly blame it on his subconscious anyway. “I thought I'd seen it somewhere before,” he told Belle with a casual wave of his hand that dismissed both her question and his unspoken uncertainties. “Must have been mistaken if it's one of a kind.”

“It _is_ a very unusual piece,” she told him. “Maybe it caught your eye through the window in passing.”

“Well, I don't go peeping in on the nuns, if that's what you're suggesting.” His voice rumbled seductively as he closed the distance between them, eyebrows raised. “Why wander anywhere from what is right-” Gold interrupted himself by pressing his lips to Belle's and kissing her soundly, finishing only when they parted. “...in front of me.”

She let out a long sigh of contentment and reached up to drape her arms over his shoulders, letting her fingers play in his hair. “You know I'd never suggest such a thing.”

“Hm.” Gold pretended to question her honesty, but she saw right through him, playing along by tipping her head to the side and putting on her most innocent expression, something that she knew drove him wild with need. In one swift motion he hoisted her up and settled her to sit on the counter, gently parting her legs with his body. “Now where were we before someone flitted in and so rudely interrupted us?”

Belle caught a finger into the knot of his tie and pulled him closer for another kiss. “Somewhere around here,” she whispered against his lips.

The shop's bell chose that same moment to chime. Gold rested his forehead against his wife's and grunted out in frustration. “We're closed.”

“Sign says you're open,” came back Emma Swan's quick response. “You know I could arrest you for public indecency?”

“My shop, my rules,” he grumbled back, though he did release Belle and turn to face their newest customer.

Emma smiled at him with a hint of apology. “Not how it works, actually.”

Gold let out a long breath and opened his arms in an exaggerated gesture of greeting. “What can we do for you, Sheriff?”

“I need something for the festival tonight,” she told him, then looked at Belle with a shrug. “I have a dress, but I don't think it'll be warm enough.”

Belle hopped down from the counter with a large grin and adjusted her skirt in one fluid movement, then gestured at the back room. “I think we have a cloak that would be about your size. If it needs any alterations, my husband can have them finished for you in only a few hours. Plenty of time for the festivities...”

Gold watched the two walk off, chattering to each other about dress color and hair ornamentation. Realizing that his romantic interlude had been permanently interrupted, he sighed and reached for the box that his wife had so carefully packed up only moments before. He was going to need a distraction if the rest of the day was to be dedicated to everyone else in town.

* *

No matter how he moved, the tightness in Gold's chest would not go away. He gazed at his reflection in the full length mirror and tugged once more at the base of his long vest, trying in vain to shift it to a more comfortable position. If he hadn't had to alter the sheriff's new cloak, perhaps he would have had time to let out the stitching in his own wardrobe. Now nothing could be done but battle the discomfort as they went about their evening.

“I told you it would fit.” 

Belle's voice whispered timidly from the doorway and he spun stiffly to face her. The vision of his wife in her shimmering golden gown took his breath away. “Belle,” he whispered. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you.” She gave a small curtsy and blinked up at him through her lashes, a playful smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “And you are stunning.” She strode gracefully across the bedroom and reached up to run her hands along the golden cloth he wore, fiddling with a button as if it needed adjustment. “I think it fits you well.”

“Fitting and being comfortable are two very different things, my love,” he told her as his hand traced the line of her jaw. He continued the caress down her neck and over her bare shoulder before quickly wrapping his arm around her and pulling her as tightly against his body as her many-layered skirts would allow.

Belle giggled. “Doesn't the festival start in half an hour?”

“Plenty of time,” Gold rumbled before kissing her soundly. He half-walked, half-danced her in the direction of their bed as their tongues played against each other, only to be nudged away at the moment before dropping them both down onto the mattress.

“I don't want to get all rumpled,” she complained, though her eyes were filled with apology.

Gold threw a darting glance around the room, desperately searching for an alternative plan, only to feel her hand on his cheek, guiding his gaze back to his wife.

“Later,” she whispered before planting a delicate kiss by his ear.

“But sweetheart, you are so difficult to resist,” Gold pleaded, only partly in seriousness.

She gave him a flirty smile. “The longer we have to wait, the more pleasurable when the time comes.”

Gold reached for the blue velvet jacket that completed his ensemble and let out a huff as he stuffed an arm into one sleeve. “Does anyone truly believe that?”

Belle helped him into the coat and reached up to adjust his collar so that it stood tall around his neck. “I do.” When she was finished she tipped her head to the side and regarded his appearance and her own reflection standing in the mirror behind him. “Are you sure we aren't too... formal? It _is_ only a fantasy festival, not a fancy dress ball.”

“Belle,” Gold said lightly. “You are the only person in town who has seen me in something _other_ than a suit.” She waggled her eyebrows at him as he spoke. They both knew she regularly saw him in much less. “If I were anything _other_ than formal it would be the evening's scandal.”

His wife reached up to drape her arm over his. “Maybe we will find some other way to be scandalous while we are there.”

He escorted her through the house, teasing as they went. “I thought you wanted to torture me all evening.”

“That's not what I said,” she huffed, though her smile was broad. “I only suggested we make the best part wait until later. That doesn't mean we can't have a _little_ fun between then and now.”

Gold hummed appreciatively. “Then, by all means, let us go and be scandalous.”

* *

The sights and smells of the town's fall festival were deeply seated into Gold's memory and assailed him before they were truly close enough to be experienced. Anticipation brought on deep intakes of breath in the hopes of catching the scent of warm spices in the air and his ears strained to hear the music being played for the dancers. His heart warmed at the thought of Belle's face lit by the soft glow of the bulbs that were strung around for illumination, and skipped when he imagined them dancing together as if they were the only two in attendance.

Though the theme changed every year, the celebration itself was always the same. The grounds in front of the Town Hall, the Mayor's office, and the connecting public parks were all transformed into a local fair, with sections dedicated to food, crafts, clothing, games, and charitable organizations. Central to it all was the grand dance floor, always beautifully decorated and surrounded by plenty of seating.

Gideon had loved this festival. When he was a boy he had talked about it months before it began, constantly questioning what the year's theme might be and then planning his costume the minute the news was announced. He loved the squash soup and the spiced apples sold at the farmers' stalls so much that he had worked out a trick on his parents, begging one of them for some money to get food and then finding the other an hour or so later to do the same.

“I'm a growing boy!” The protest was given even after he had entered high school. The pout that came with his exclamation never failed to bend each to do his bidding. It was just last year that they caught him at this game and now he could play it no longer.

Belle's hand gripped his tightly and Gold knew she must be having similar memories. He paused as they reached the entrance and turned to face her, brushing the back of his fingers along her cheek. Her eyes glistened, but the tears they held had yet to fall. “We can go back,” he whispered softly in a tone that he hoped told her he didn't want to leave, but he would if it was what she needed.

“No,” she answered. “Gideon wouldn't want us to stay home. We should do this for him.”

Gold nodded and offered his arm, which she took and held on to as if it were a lifeline. Together they walked under the decorated archway, supporting each other as they went.

“You _do_ know this is a fantasy festival?” Mayor Mills greeted them almost immediately. Her flowing black gown trailed behind her as she strode forward and Gold raised an eyebrow. The queen's costume she had chosen could hardly be classified as “casual.”

“I tried to tell him,” Belle said innocently. “But you know my husband.”

Henry, the mayor's son smiled up at the two of them. “I like it,” he said cheerfully. “It's very Beauty and the Beast.”

“Not necessarily what I was aiming for,” Gold told him with a smile. “But I'll accept the compliment.”

“Well, you certainly will be the evening's entertainment,” Regina told them, her smile fading as she looked between the Golds. “I mean... I'm sorry... I just assumed...”

Belle and her husband were never advertised as performers during the festival, but every year a request was put in for a private dance and they never declined. How could they, when it was Gideon who asked for the moment? The expectation of the ritual had never been spoken aloud before and it made Gold's eyebrows rise in query.

“We'll see how things go.” It was Belle who spoke, giving Gold's arm a squeeze for support. 

The mayor's lips twitched up into a sad smile. “I truly am sorry about your loss,” she told them both, looking from Belle to Gold. “I know this can't be easy. Of course, no one expects-”

“Miss Mills,” Gold said plainly. “I'm well aware of what the town thinks of us _and_ how they expect us to participate in these gatherings.”

Belle whispered something inaudible and leaned against him, calming the rage that was beginning to build, somehow aware of it before even he was. “Thank you,” she told Regina sincerely, and with a nod of farewell, the two were left in peace.

“I'm sorry,” Gold murmured. “I-”

After the most tender of kisses, Belle reached up to brush away moisture from his cheek. “I think they understand,” she said softly. “Just remember that we are here for each other. Okay?”

Gold nodded. “Where would you like to begin?”

“I'd like to look through the candles,” she said instantly. “See if something calls out to us.”

“And visit the cemetery later this week?”

She nodded, tucking her lip between her teeth. “Does that seem strange?”

“No,” Gold whispered into her hair as he pulled her tightly to his side. “I was thinking something similar myself.”

Belle smiled up at him, her unshed tears finally escaping her eyes. “Good.” The whisper was clearly all she could manage and Gold didn't answer, only lead the way to the tables and tents set up in the crafts area.

They walked slowly past one stall and then another, perusing what was available as they made their way to the candle maker's booth at the end of the row. Most vendors had simple setups, arranging tables or shelving to display what was on offer, but some created elaborate displays in line with the year's theme. The chandler had always been one of the latter, their attention to detail expanding far beyond their wares and encompassing their shop's entire designated area. This year they had not disappointed.

Candice, the owner of Spiral Candles, had set up a tent of dark cloth and arranged her various colors of molten wax in something that perfectly resembled a single, black cauldron. The tent's interior was well lit, making the bright colors of each candle pop out to catch the eye, even from a great distance. Carved and sculpted pieces hung from racks at the sides and back of the tent, while black shelving and display tables held her partner's famous creation; a pillar candle that actually burned in a spiral, slowly consuming itself without spilling. 

The couple had always insisted on plying their trade at the festival, causing small crowds to gather around the tent, and at this moment the area was packed with spectators. As Gold approached, he eyed the cluster of bodies with frustration.

“They're busy today,” Belle commented.

He nodded, hovering at a display for one of the local jewelry shops. “We can move closer when that bunch have moved on.”

“Well, at least it brings in more business for the rest of us,” announced the man behind the jewelry table as he gestured at the sparkling gems on display. 

Belle picked up a thin bracelet which contained a virtual rainbow of gems, each held in place by a beautifully crafted golden vine. “These are lovely,” she said as she replaced it and picked up another, in a similar style.

“My brother's work,” the man said flatly. “I'm afraid that he inherited the genes for crafting while I became the master of... other things...”

Gold's eyebrows shot up at the man's words. 

“What Harold means,” said a thickly built man as he parted the draped cloth at the back of the stall, “is that he hunts down the gems and I put them into settings.” He reached out to shake each of their hands. “Roy. At your service.”

Belle glanced down again at the table and Gold watched carefully, studying which items seemed to keep her fancy so that he could return to purchase a gift for her later. “They are all so lovely,” she said as she admired a broach, then a ring, then put her attention back on the bracelets she had first given her attention to. “All very natural.”

“I do prefer the elegance in nature,” Roy told her. “We specialize in birthstone jewelry and items of remembrance or meant to commemorate special occasions, but I do make some custom items, if you prefer.” 

He held out a card for Belle to take and she accepted, glancing at it before handing it to her husband for safekeeping. 

Gold nodded and tucked the card away in the inside pocket of his vest. “I can certainly appreciate the workmanship,” he said as he bent to study a medium-sized pin. It was meant to be square, though the gems gave it slightly a round shape. The centerpiece was a thin green stone, which was then surrounded by golden yellow gems. “What stone is this?”

It was Harold who answered. “Both the green centerpiece and yellow are garnets. Most people associate garnets with the color red, but there are multiple color variations.”

“The setting is practically seamless.” Gold indicated the piece in question and looked up for permission to study it further. “May I?”

Roy nodded. “One of the few designed and created by my brother,” he said happily. “A more traditional arrangement than we usually sell, but it most certainly catches the eye.”

“It _looks_ like an eye,” Belle observed, waving her smallest finger over the gems as she spoke. “The green could be the slit of a pupil. It's very beautiful,” she added hastily, in a tone that implied she hadn't meant to suggest otherwise.

Harold lowered his head in a nod of appreciation. “Thank you. It's always good to know when someone admires one's work.”

As the two brothers exchanged heated glances, Gold made up his mind that it was time to make a retreat. He thanked each man again as Belle wandered down the row to the candle maker's tent, taking advantage of the moment alone to promise a return to their stall once he had the chance to slip away. “A bracelet,” he said quickly, indicating the set that Belle had seemed to fancy. “She looks best in blues and greens, if you have them,” he added in a conspiratorial way before striding off after his wife.

By the time Gold had taken the ten steps to the chandler's shop, the crowd had already thickened to the point where he had to excuse himself to reach his wife's side. 

“Ah, Mister Gold!” The cry, though cheerful, felt like an expression of intrusion. Candice always made guests to her tent feel somewhat unwelcome, as if they were interrupting something more important in their arrival. “Your wife was just browsing the spirals.”

Belle held up a simple, cream colored candle. “This one, I think,” she said, offering it to her husband for inspection.

Gold nodded and held up payment.

“Give it to Kieran,” Candice said haughtily as she dipped a star-shaped candle in blue wax. “I am rather busy. This has to be carved while it is warm.”

Kieran frowned and stopped his own work to step forward and take the money, mumbling his thanks and providing change. “She is a master at what she does,” he said as if trying to give praise that he didn't quite believe in. “Candice taught me everything she knows. One day, I might strike out on my own, though I'd never be able to match her skills with the carving.”

“And that is why you make the simple pillars, dear,” Candice replied with a frown of concentration as she added a white layer over the blue wax she had just applied. “A marvelous invention,” she added as she worked.

Belle gazed down at the candle in her hands. “I've seen them in the homes of some of our friends, but never lit,” she admitted.

Smiling, Kieran pointed to a sample. “In this one the wax is thinner so that customers can see the workings,” he said eagerly as he pointed out the elements of his design. “Instead of placing the wick in vertically, I wrap it around the mold. The center is hollow so that the melted wax will pool there. The result is this...” He then lifted up a used candle and pointed to the edges, then the central dip. “The edges will melt inward and when the candle is solid, you light the small standing wicks to burn out the rest. The wax is entirely consumed and nothing is wasted.”

“Amazing,” Belle whispered, staring down at her own with new appreciation.

“Yes, well, it is certainly a novelty,” Candice humphed as she moved her candle to the carving table. “The important thing is that it sells.”

“Can we have the attention of the Golds, please. Would Mister and Missus Gold please report to the central square?” The announcement echoed through the night from hidden speakers.

For a split second, Gold's heart jumped, then reality hit like a brick wall. Gideon couldn't have put in the call for them as usual. The page had to be for something else.

“If you'll excuse us...” Belle sounded as if she were in a daze.

Kieran nodded and turned to Gold. “Would you care for me to reserve that for you? You can pick it up on your way home.”

Gold nodded. “Yes,” he said sadly. “That would be kind. Thank you.”

Belle grasped his arm and squeezed it tightly as they made their way back up the aisle and to the central gathering area. “What do you think it is?” Her voice was a hush, catching in her throat.

“I don't know,” he answered, wrapping his hand over hers and holding it tightly. “We will soon see.”

As the two arrived in the cleared area a respectful hush fell on the crowd. Just ahead, Leroy stood on the hastily built stage. The concern in his expression was quickly wiped away by a winning smile. “Ah! Here you are!” Though he was clearly an expert at voice projection, he activated the microphone in his hand and stepped forward. “If I can have everyone's attention... I have an important announcement to make...”

Gold swallowed hard. Until this moment he had been certain that if the call had come, he would happily escort his wife to the dance floor and share their traditional moment in the spotlight. Now, feeling his chest tighten as things were arranged, he wasn't as sure that he could follow through.

Beside him, Belle blinked, the extra moisture in her eyes glistening under the glow of the hanging strings of bulbs. “I wonder who...” She didn't have time to say more.

“As you all know, each year that this festival has been held Gideon Gold would find the time to make a request,” Leroy said, now in a tone of reverence and respect. “At first he would beg. 'My parents love each other so much and I just want to share that love with everyone,' he'd say... but after a few years we came to expect his arrival and even welcome the change to the festival's performance schedule...”

Outside of the dance area a massive crowd had gathered, each face turned to the stage with a solemn expression. Gold glanced around at those in attendance and recognized each and every face. It seemed that everyone in the town had dropped what they were doing and arrived at this spot, in this time.

“Last year,” Leroy continued, “was Gideon's final year in high school. He came up to me and made me promise that if he were away for any further festivals I would continue this tradition for him. I know he meant to attend university this year, but his change in fate doesn't change my promise to him. So Mister Gold... Missus Gold... If you feel willing, of course...”

Belle gazed up at him with a melding of joy and sadness in her eyes, silently begging him to agree and Gold could not refuse. “Gideon wanted it,” he whispered softly.

She nodded.

Gold turned then and stretched out his hand to her, silently asking for the dance. Belle accepted and the music began, guiding them out to the open square and into their graceful act of remembrance. That was what this moment had forever been changed into. It could no longer be a few minutes of romance or entertainment, but had somehow become a time to remember their son on this single day that had always meant the world to him. 

The couple glided and twirled to the tune, lights casting a glow over them as they moved. Spectators and passersby seemed frozen in time as Gold and Belle let the music carry them along the ground. Beyond the gentle tones of the band, the rest of the festival seemed utterly silent.

When the music stopped, Gold bowed to Belle and she curtsied in return. He waited for the traditional applause, stomach clenching with the hope that this year, this one year, their dance would bring only peaceful quiet at the end, and for an instant he felt his wish had been granted.

“Wait!” A young voice shouted as he moved to escort Belle off the grounds.

Gold turned to see Henry dash up to the stage, his knight costume clanking as he moved in clumsy strides. The boy whispered something to Leroy behind his hand and the two turned to the musicians. At first the words were met with confusion, after a moment acceptance washed over the group as each nodded in agreement to the secret terms. 

Henry strode proudly out to where the couple stood, arms interlocked, waiting as they had been asked to do. “I asked them to do one more song this time,” the boy said with a sly smile. “_That_ one was for Gideon. _This_ dance should be for both of you.” His eyes darted from Gold to Belle and back again, anticipation dancing in their depths.

“I don't know,” Belle whispered.

“Please,” Henry insisted. “Gideon asked for you to dance for _each other_, not for him or for them...” He gestured at the crowd.

Gold knew it was true. “Honestly,” he said softly to Belle, “I would be glad for it. We need... something different this year. I don't know if I can end this here, thinking only of our son. Gideon _would_ want us to be thinking of each other.”

Belle's features softened, eventually pulling the corners of her mouth into a smile. “All right,” she agreed. “Once more.”

Beaming, Henry waved at the stage and the music began. The boy grinned up at the pair as Gold rolled his eyes at the familiar tune. “Should we call you Chip? Is it past your bedtime yet?”

“Nope,” Henry said before rushing off to stand with his mother again.

As the familiar theme to Beauty and the Beast began to play, Gold pulled Belle close and pressed his forehead to hers so that the very tips of their noses were touching and the two became lost in each other, as their son had always hoped that they would.

* *

Gold cried out as he collapsed on the bed, exhausted from the night's exertions. Pulling in one long breath, he settled against the mattress, feeling it conform to his entire body in the most heavenly fashion. Beside him, Belle rested her head on his chest, draping one of her legs across his. Her bare skin was moist and intoxicating against his own, reigniting a burning need for her even though his body was still recovering.

“I told you it would be better if we waited,” Belle whispered against his shoulder, kissing it tenderly.

“You did,” he said, letting out an appreciative sigh as he pulled her closer. “I should know better than to doubt you, sweetheart.”

Belle's head shifted and he glanced down at her, meeting her gaze as best he could.

“It was a beautiful evening,” she told him simply. The rest of her thought unspoken, but dangling between them.

Gold looked over at the table, where she had set the candle and her new bracelet before their passions had taken control of them. The thought of Gideon made him smile for the first time in what felt like an eternity. “It was,” he whispered and imagined his son's cheeky grin as he drifted off to sleep.

* * * Weaver * * *

A sharp buzzing forced Detective Weaver's eyes open and he swore as he stretched. It felt as if he had only _just_ drifted off and now here he was, awake again. Instinct had him turn to the empty side of the bed, though he knew Belle would not be there. As the annoying tone came again, he reached for the phone at his table, accepted the incoming call and barked a simple, “What?”

“Well that's some way to greet your Captain when you're waiting on an assignment,” the man at the other end responded. The words would have been harsh coming from anyone else. “I thought you _wanted_ to hear from me.”

Weaver groaned, “Sorry,” he said, running a hand over his face. “I just woke up.”

“You're cleared to report in today,” the man told him, adding quickly, “on limited duty. You've been assigned to the evidence room until we can find a partner for you.”

“Evidence room!” He shouted back, then caught himself and quieted his tone, wondering if Gideon was still asleep. “I don't need a damn partner, just let me get back to _my_ job.”

There was a sigh at the other end, followed by a short silence. Weaver could easily visualize the Captain shaking his head. “Those were the rules, Weaver. Evidence room until you get a partner and a partner until further notice. Take it or go back to bed.”

“I'll take it,” Weaver grunted.

“Good. I'll expect you at nine.” The line went dead.

Weaver tossed the phone down on the bed and moved to sit up noticing that the sheets and his clothes were a complete mess. It was the guaranteed outcome after spending time with Belle and it made him feel like a teenage boy sorting out his hormonal outbursts. He stood and peeled the sticky clothes from his body, idly wondering if he should mention the aftermath of his dreams to Doctor Gorman, then deciding against it. Who knew what kind of nonsense the woman would come up with as a way to explain his body's subconscious, lustful desires.

With a sigh, he bent to pull the sheets from the bed, resigned to the fact that a single load of laundry would be part of his morning routine for much of the foreseeable future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for waiting for this. Life has been busy. 
> 
> Here are the new names and their meanings, in case anyone wants to play a guessing game as to who the new characters are. 
> 
> I won't directly answer guesses, but you can sure make me try.
> 
> Candice – queen mother  
Kieran – dark man  
Harold – ruler of the army  
Roy – king
> 
> Next chapter, the murder begins...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise. It's a new chapter. 
> 
> Don't get excited. I happened to have a writing spree with the last chapter, so this was almost complete.
> 
> I will still be slow with the rest. Not that I want to be. This is life.

* * Weaver * *

By the time Weaver had showered, dressed, and gathered his laundry, he could smell breakfast cooking downstairs. He hefted the evidence of last night's dreams and carefully descended, following the scent of eggs and coffee to the kitchen.

“Morning,” he greeted Gideon as he entered. “Make enough for two?”

“Of course,” his son smiled back, reaching out for the rumpled cloth in Weaver's arms. “Let me take that so you can eat.”

Weaver turned away, sidestepping his way to the washer. “That's all right. I've got time.”

“Papa, you don't have to hide it from me,” Gideon teased as he served out a helping of eggs and set it on the table. “I _am_ grown now, you know. I can handle the fact that things can get a little... sticky... for you at night.”

Weaver felt his face burn with embarrassment. “Yes, well...” he stammered. “It seems a little.. excessive.” He lifted the lid of the washing machine, hoping the squeal of the metal would put an end to their conversation, but his son wasn't so easily distracted.

Gideon put his own food at the table and glanced over at his Papa. “Which part is too much? Talking about it, or how much you wake up to?” 

“Both,” grunted Weaver as he turned a scowl in Gideon's direction. His son was positively beaming at him. The younger man was enjoying this and that pure pleasure seeped into Weaver's heart and lightened it, if only a little.

“I'm glad you're remembering Mother at night,” Gideon said after a silence between them, his expression softening though his tone held an odd sort of pride in it. “I know you loved each other. There's nothing wrong with what is natural for you.”

Weaver slammed down the lid of the washer and started it up. “Remind me which one of us is the parent again?”

Gideon chuckled. “I'm just saying it won't traumatize me to see evidence of your-”

“Let's just accept the fact that I can do my own laundry,” Weaver interrupted. He turned to face his son, giving him a smile to show he wasn't as offended as it might seem.

Holding up his hands in submission, Gideon nodded. “Point made,” he agreed with a grin. “I heard the phone this morning, was it good news?”

Weaver took his seat and nodded, though it was concern for his son that came first. “Did it wake you?” When Gideon shook his head, the detective grunted acceptance. “Good... Yes, I go back to work this morning. Limited duty.”

“It's a start,” Gideon said encouragingly. He knew how much his father had wanted to be back on the job.

“It barely qualifies,” Weaver told him. “They've thrown me in the basement. Logging evidence.” He rolled his eyes.

“So it's a test.” His son took a swallow of coffee and poked his fork into the air to make his point. “One you will pass in a day or two to prove that you can get back to your own desk.”

Weaver shook his head. “They're assigning me a partner. I'm in evidence until they find one.”

Gideon watched his father for a while, so quiet that Weaver actually looked up at him curiously. “Is it so bad?” The younger man finally asked, a sadness in his eyes that seemed to plunge deep into their depths.

“Never needed anyone before,” Weaver huffed, looking away to stab violently at part of his egg. 

“But you had Mother,” Gideon insisted. “I may be grown, but I'm still only your son.” He tipped his head back at the washing machine. “Clearly there are things you don't feel comfortable sharing with me,” he added with a grin. 

“I don't-.” Weaver began a protest, but Gideon interrupted him. 

“I just mean you might find out that whoever gets assigned to you is someone who can give you what I can't,” he said honestly. “Someone you can talk to about bills or the stupid things your son does... like catching you trying to clean up after some very special dreams-”

“Or that he wouldn't shut up about it?” Weaver glared playfully. “You trying to set me up?”

The words were cheerful and intended to be generic, but they flew from the detective's mouth before he realized what they might have implied. In an instant the light in the room seemed to dim and the walls closed in a little tighter. How could he have said such a thing with Belle lost to them only so recently? She was constantly in his thoughts. He missed her every second. How could he even _think_ of replacing her? 

A frown crossed Gideon's face and his eyes darkened with sadness, making Weaver wish he could take everything back. He started to apologize, but Gideon gave him a little smile and shook his head. “I just want you to have _someone_ that you can talk to,” he said simply as he stood to clear his plate away.

Weaver closed his eyes and nodded. He let out a long, slow breath that ended when he felt a hand squeeze his shoulder. The detective opened his eyes and reached up to place his own hand on top of Gideon's, patting it in a fatherly way before returning the squeeze.

They smiled at each other until the corner of Gideon's mouth twitched in what Weaver knew was the sign that the younger man was holding his emotions on a tight leash. “I've got class,” Gideon told him finally, releasing his shoulder and moving to the hallway. “See you for dinner?”

“My turn to cook,” Weaver answered softly.

“Won't argue with that,” called Gideon as he picked up his things and headed out the door.

* *

The basement was cold and sterile, flooded with unnatural light. Weaver's “desk” was not much more than a table and his chair was supremely uncomfortable, not to mention noisy. The damned thing squeaked if he so much as took in too large of a breath. The temptation to throw down his pen and storm out the door had come to him several times during his day of exile, but every time he made a move to leave, the chair's answering squeal took him back to the morning's conversation with Gideon, the noise of the washing machine and the smiles that had gone with it. 

The boy was right about his needing someone. He was also hardly a boy, Weaver reminded himself with a sigh. In a few years he would move on to whatever life held for him and take with him of all the joy Weaver had left. Maybe he should begin preparing for that now.

A faint beeping caused Weaver to glance upward as the door to the room opened. His heart lifted in hopes that the captain had come to make introductions, but the man that greeted him was only sergeant Ryce, beaming as he held up a handful of plastic bags.

“More for you,” he said happily. “From Lamont.”

Weaver gestured at the space to his left. “Add it to the pile.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bags join the others. “John or Jane?”

Ryce actually chuckled, a short, deep sound. “John this time.” He hovered near the desk before asking, “How does he do it?”

“Do what?” Weaver made his voice gruff, hoping that the desk sergeant would get the hint and leave. He didn't.

“Well, he ends up with all the unexplained stuff,” the man said with a shrug. “Unnamed victims. Random crimes.”

Weaver shrugged, checking his work as he spoke, keeping his eyes down as another deterrent. “He arranges it, I'm sure. He's got his hands somewhere.” 

“You think?” Ryce shifted backward in surprise.

“I've got no idea,” Weaver huffed as he finally lifted his eyes up to scowl at the sergeant. “Was there anything else?”

“Nope.” The man's mouth twitched in an attempt to smile. “See you upstairs.”

Weaver grunted his uncertainty and waved the other man on his way with one hand as he reached for a stack of papers. He heard shoes scuffle and the door shut, then more shoes. Could the man not take a hint? “Look, I've actually got work here, so-” Turning, weaver realized the desk sergeant was gone, replaced by the captain and a stiff, young man with dark hair and a scruffy beard. “Captain,” he amended politely. “Sorry. Thought Ryce had stayed to chat.”

The captain shrugged it off and indicated the newcomer. “This is Rogers,” he said flatly. “Been in the force for a few years, but he's new to detective work. Thought you could show him the ropes.”

“So my babysitter's a baby himself.” Weaver snorted.

Rogers shifted on his feet. He had the grace not to speak up, but he was clearly uncomfortable in the situation that had been thrust upon him.

“No offense,” Weaver barked at him, mostly as an afterthought for the benefit of the captain.

The new Detective shrugged. “None taken. I'm pushing in on your territory. I get it.”

The captain nodded his head. “Well, I'll leave you two to get to know each other.” He strode to the door, then turned back to Weaver. “Finish what you've got, then head upstairs. They're just finishing the arrangement of your new office.”

“New office?” Weaver called back, but the captain was gone.

“They've uh... put us in one of those joint rooms off the front,” Rogers explained for him.

“Well, I hope they don't touch my stuff,” Weaver huffed as he threw himself into the squeaky chair, forcing it to make a sound like that of a mouse being squeezed to death. 

Rogers shrugged. “Don't think they planned on it.”

“Good.” Weaver went back to his work, filing the papers and boxing the last of the evidence while Rogers hovered nearby. Realizing he should say something, he paused to glance up. “Look, up until today I worked alone. I did things _my_ way and on _my_ terms. That's not gonna change overnight. I know you're here on orders of the captain to keep an eye on me, so just stay out of my way and it'll all be over. You'll be back to handing out parking tickets before you know it.”

“No one ordered me to do anything,” Rogers insisted, taking a step toward the table. “I _earned_ my promotion. From what the captain said, he wanted me to learn from the best, so he assigned me to you. I wasn't told anything else.”

Weaver set the evidence box in one of the lockers and turned around. “Well, then let me set the record straight. Almost three months ago my family and I were in an accident. My wife was killed. I spent a few weeks in the hospital, then they sent me to therapy. The therapist refused to let me on duty until today. So, like it or not, you're really here because no one trusts me to do the job myself.”

“I... I'm sorry,” Rogers said softly. “About your wife, I mean. That can't have been easy.”

“It wasn't,” barked Weaver.

Rogers shook his head. “No, of course not...”

“You-” Just as Weaver was about to break into another rant, something in the pile of yet-to-be logged evidence blinked under the harsh lighting and all words escaped him. He stared down through the layers of plastic, shifting his position slightly to try and catch sight of the glittering object again. 

“You... okay?” Rogers took another half step forward, hand hovering just away from his side as if he worried he would have to catch his new partner before a fall.

A green spark appeared in one of the bags at the same moment and Weaver snatched at it, toppling the once orderly stack into chaos. He turned the object in his hand, trying to get a good enough look at it before breaking open the seal and reaching inside.

“Are you sure you should-” Rogers made a halfhearted attempt at a protest, but when he realized he was too late, he waved his hand dismissively. “All right. Never mind, then.”

Inside the bag was a piece of squarish jewelry and Weaver twisted it in his fingers, examining it closely. There was no mistaking the green stone or the perfect golden gems around it. He knew this pin. He had seen it only the day before.

Snatching up the bag he had just discarded, he scanned the label that tracked possession of the item, found the first name on the list and rushed to the door, leaving the mess and a very confused Rogers, behind him.

“Shouldn't we...”

Weaver spun on his heel and aimed a thumb over his shoulder at the exit. “You're welcome to stay here and clean up after me, if you like,” he said flatly. “Or you can tag along and learn something like the captain told you to. Your choice.”

Tipping his head to the side in contemplation of his options, Rogers moved to follow. Weaver barely gave him any time at all to catch up, striding away and up to the main floor with renewed purpose. This was going to be the case that put him back where he belonged.

“Where's Gray?” He barked the words even before he had reached Ryce's post at the station's main entrance.

“Bonnie?” The man blinked up in surprise, then his eyes flicked to the right. “She's uh... Down the hall, I think. In the break room!” The volume of the words increased as he compensated for the distance between his desk and Weaver's back.

Weaver listened as he walked, anticipating the direction of his query by where sergeant Bryce had turned his gaze. He could hear Rogers muttering something behind him and then the man's hurried footsteps as he tried to keep up. The new detective was going to be a pain in his backside.

Flinging the break room door open with more force than necessary, Weaver was in the room in less than a minute, standing by the center table and holding the pin up to an officer with short, black hair. “Where did you get this?”

The diminutive woman frowned up at him. “Well, if you'd read the evidence bag that I used for it, you might already know that.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And if you followed chain of possession, you'd also know I haven't seen it since.”

“Never mind that,” Weaver grunted, batting at the air as if he could whisk away her words. “Where'd it come from?”

“Do you have any idea how much evidence I have helped collect over the years, Weaver?”

“Just tell me where you _got_ the damned thing!” The sharpness in Weaver's tone cut the air around them to shreds and silenced even the breathing of the officers around him. He felt rather than heard the presence of Rogers at his side and continued to ignore it, focusing his eyes solely on the room's single female occupant. The ice in his gaze telling her he wouldn't leave until he got his answer.

Reluctantly, Gray stood and came to Weaver for a better look at the object he held. She turned her head one way, then another as she studied the piece. “I remember it,” she said finally. “Found it at the scene of a murder.”

“Where,” demanded Weaver, in a tone that pushed the border between shout and command.

“A warehouse,” Gray told him with a shrug. “Some place full of stuffed animals. A toy shop or something. It was _ages_ ago. I couldn't guess why it made an appearance now.”

“Court case,” Weaver explained simply. “Which warehouse? What do you remember about the murder?”

Bonnie threw her hands up in the air. “Nothing! Really, Weaver, what do you want from me? What is all this?”

“Weaver!” The captain's voice shot out from the doorway. “What in the name of the devil are you doing? Removing evidence from storage and brandishing it around the main office?”

Weaver turned on the man. He tried to control the fire that was building up inside him over this new discovery, but the fight with his inner determination was near the turning point. In fact, he had probably passed it, considering where he now stood. 

He glanced down at the pin in his hands, then held it up at eye level. “This pin was made by a man named Harold,” he said. “He and his brother Roy own a jewelry store in-”

The words caught in Weaver's throat. What was he supposed to say? That the men were from one of his many erotic dreams about his wife? If he admitted that he was sure to get himself permanently locked in the basement or banned from the department.

Everyone in the room waited patiently for the completion of the sentence, but it was the captain who finally gave in to curiosity. “In what? Or Where?” He shoved his hands into his pockets and glared daggers at Weaver, silently demanding a better explanation.

“My wife and I had been to their shop,” Weaver finally admitted, deciding that was close enough to the truth. If his lives were going to keep crossing like this, he was going to have to be more careful with the things he decided to share with others. 

The captain nodded knowingly, an expression of sympathy growing on his face. “Ah. I see...”

“Look, maybe I'm just eager to get back out in the field,” Weaver pleaded quietly, hoping a softer tone would woo the man in charge. “But the case was _just_ classified as cold. If I might know something, shouldn't I get the chance to work with it?”

“Shouldn't you do that through the proper channels?” 

Weaver conceded. “Sure. You're right,” he said with as much humility as he could muster. “Won't happen again.”

“Not setting much of an example for your new partner,” the captain added. “Nor proving yourself ready for the field...” The man paused for so long that Weaver was sure he could hear the gears in his brain churning out his decision. “You finish up downstairs today and I'll give you tomorrow to follow up on this lead. _But_ you do it by the book. You understand? None of your usual backdoor meetings.”

“Sure. Partner and all,” Weaver agreed, sending a smile to the practically forgotten Rogers.

The captain indicated the door and Weaver left without another word. Behind him, he heard Rogers apologize to the rest of the room. Not only was having a tag along going to be a pain in his rear end, but that incessant goodness was going to drive him insane.

“Hang on!” His new partner called after him as they made their way back to storage. “You want to tell me what's going on here?”

“What didn't you pick up on, Rogers?” Weaver snapped as they walked, keeping up his rapid stride to force the taller man to lengthen his own. “Was it the fact that I knew the pin's creator or the fact that we now have a chance to solve a case?”

“Well, I-”

Weaver stopped at the evidence room control box and turned so suddenly that Rogers nearly slammed into him. “That was a rhetorical question,” he grumbled. “We got the case, we'll have everything we need in the morning.”

He punched in the code and reentered the room, beginning to clear the mess he had made the moment he reached the desk.

“This just seems... personal... or something,” Rogers managed. “I wondered if it had something to do with your wife... I mean... Other than visiting the shop with her.”

Weaver froze, his hands poised in the middle of reorganizing the evidence bags. “Not exactly,” he said at last, deciding it was the safest answer that he could give. “It's a long story.”

As Weaver went back to his work, Rogers lifted the empty evidence bag from where it had fallen, studied it, then found the paperwork that matched. “Says here they interviewed the owner of that pin. Man by the name of Walter King.”

“Don't know who that is, but it was Harold who made it,” Weaver grunted as he worked. “Harold...” He paused and glanced skyward as if the rest of the man's name would fall from the ceiling. Their full names had been written on that business card Belle had given him. Why hadn't he looked at the damned thing before he put it away?

He shook his head, giving up on the answer, realizing that it wouldn't be the same anyway. Everyone he knew from his time with Belle may live here in Hyperion Heights, but they all had a completely different life and a new name to match. In Storybrooke, Gray was a happily domestic housewife and Hyperion PD's appointed therapist was a Nun.

Snatching up his coat, Weaver made his way to the door. “Finish up here,” he ordered Rogers. “I've got to get some sleep.”

* *

By the time Gideon arrived home, the dinner had been cooked, the table set, and Weaver had spent plenty of time pondering his new reality, but every concern he had flew out the window at the sight of his son.

“Hey, Papa.” Gideon came through to the kitchen looking exhausted and depressed, backpack still hefted on his shoulder as if he had forgotten it existed. “Smells good.”

Immediately Weaver was over at his side, reaching to take the bag and scanning the boy's form to check for obvious wounds or bruises. “Gideon,” he worried. “What's the matter? Did something happen?”

The young man shook his head. “No. Nothing happened, just... tired,” he said as he relinquished his hold on the backpack and sank into his seat at the table. “Hard day.”

Weaver hurried to fill a glass with water and placed it in front of his son. “You and me both.”

Gideon took a long swallow as his father rested a hand at the back of his neck. “I'm not sick, Papa,” he smiled, though the action felt forced.

“Someone giving you trouble at school?”

“No,” his son answered. “Really. It was just a long day with classes that I didn't think would end.” He took another drink of water and tried to keep the smile on his face. “Wasn't expecting you home this early.”

“Want me to go back?” Weaver nodded at the doorway. The suggestion brought a genuine chuckle from his son, helping erase some of his worry. He allowed a short silence to follow, hoping that Gideon would offer something more, but when nothing came, he made a suggestion. “I was thinking maybe a movie tonight. You up for it?”

Gideon nodded. “Sure,” he said, finishing the water and standing to refill the glass again. “Sounds great.”

* *

Neither one of them had paid much attention to the movie they had chosen, both too lost in their own stories to be truly interested in anyone else's. For the most part, Weaver had split his time thinking about his own situation and wondering what on earth could have brought his son down. Gideon hadn't ever been the kind of child to be bothered by things around him. Eternal optimism was one of the traits he had taken from his mother. Anything else was so foreign that it made him seem like a different person altogether. 

After the movie and a shared bowl of popcorn, the two said their goodnights and moved off to their own rooms. The routine was the same, but Gideon seemed only to be going through the motions, as if lost in a thick fog.

Weaver sighed as he settled in his bed, shifting one way and then another until finally giving up on comfort to stare at the ceiling. “Belle,” he whispered as he closed his eyes. “I wish you could talk to him...”

* * Gold * *

The instant Gold opened his eyes he leapt from the bed and ran to the chair where he had carefully draped his costume the night before. He fished around inside the vest pocket until he pulled out a card and read it.

__

_Roy and Harold Leone_  
_Circle of Life Jewelry_  
_Natural looks commemorating all of life's moments._  
_Birthstone, Memorials, Special Occasions_

_Damn._ He sighed and dropped the card on the nearby dresser. Of course, he had no reason to expect that the names would match. Belle and Gideon were the only two people in either of his lives who remained constant, but he had hoped there would be some clue to point him in the right direction.

He turned to watch his sleeping wife, already missing Gideon, but grateful to know that when he went to bed that night he would awake to the sounds of his son rummaging around in his room or rattling pans in the kitchen. Whatever was happening was a gift, one that he would never question, despite what both therapists expected of him.

Gold turned back to the bed, but the contrast of the white card on the dark wood of the dresser caught his attention again and he stared down at the address written in tiny letters at the bottom. If having Belle and Gideon was a gift, maybe his double life could be one as well. As Gold he had never felt the urge to go investigating any more than he had felt the urge to collect things as Weaver, but he wondered now if he couldn't make each of his personalities help the other.

The jewelry store was only blocks from his own shop. Perhaps he could pay them a visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Names in this chapter (in case you want to guess who they might be)
> 
> Lamont – as a last name means law man.  
Bonnie Gray is no secret. This is Judy Hopps. How could I not? And yes, it is meant to be Snow White's cursed persona in Hyperion Heights.
> 
> I assume you know the brothers by now, but Walter means ruler of the army.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A rustling of bedclothes caught Gold's attention and he looked up from the jeweler's business card in just enough time to catch a tantalizing glimpse of soft flesh before Belle tucked the covers back around herself in the pretense of sleep. He debated returning to her side, but decided that testing her resolve would be more fun, so he stood, naked as the day he was born, and lifted the card again. He pretended to study it, gazing intently as if there were entire volumes of information written on the slick rectangle. The ruse lasted for only a minute before a loud groan emitted from the bed.

“Oh, you can't just stand there tormenting me!” Belle threw back the covers in frustration, exposing herself. As part of him grew in appreciation of the scene, so did her smug grin. “Not fair, is it?”

“It's fair,” Gold said as he dropped the card back on the dresser and crept forward like a cat stalking its prey. “But only if we get to pounce on each other afterward.”

On his hands and knees, Gold prowled his way up to where Belle was settled. He grinned as he caught her eyes drifting down his body and hovered for a moment more, letting the object of her desire dangle over her warm flesh, but refusing to let it touch her. She wanted a show and he was happy to give her one.

Realizing she had been caught, Belle blushed and averted her gaze. “What were you planning to do this morning?” The question was meant to be a distraction, but came out as a tease.

“You,” he whispered as he pressed his body firmly to hers.

Belle rumbled with pleasure and wrapped herself tightly around him. “I can't object to that.”

With a flick of one hand, Gold caught the edge of the covers that remained on the bed and tossed them away, making no attempt to hide how his eyes were devouring her. He wanted to see all of her, watch how their bodies joined and moved as one. “So beautiful,” he whispered. “How could I have been so lucky to-” 

His voice cracked as an image from his other life forced itself into his mind; the overturned car crushed around them and Belle's lifeless body dangling from the seat beside him. He hadn't been lucky. In the life he had just abandoned, that was his reality. Tears filled his eyes and he sat back on his knees to wipe them away, their moment of bliss forgotten.

Belle rose with him, sitting and pulling his head down to her bare shoulder. She ran her hands tenderly through his hair as he wept, whispering indistinct words to try and soothe him. He knew she thought he was thinking of Gideon and he let her. How could he explain?

“I'm sorry,” Gold rasped once he was able. “I didn't...”

“It's okay,” she told him gently, the sound warm and rumbling where his ear met her chest. 

Neither of them wanted to say what they were thinking or talk about what was happening. This grief wasn't yet something that had completely left them. Hopper insisted they spend time sharing their feelings with each other instead of using sex to shield themselves from their loss, but every time they felt the emptiness hit them, conversation simply wouldn't come. It shouldn't, they had decided, not yet.

After a long silence and the mutual wiping of tears, Belle released him enough to look into his eyes. “Do you want to stay in bed, or should I get a start on breakfast?”

Gold shook his head. “I want you with me.”

“Well... you could come down and 'help'...” Belle smiled at him.

“Last time I did that we spilled the pancake batter and burned your-”

Belle held up a hand against the memory. “Not doing that again,” she insisted through a light giggle that almost held some feeling in it.

“How about we compromise? Shower?” Gold raised his eyebrows.

“That,” his wife said, “sounds lovely.”

* * *

It was well past noon by the time the Golds had showered, eaten, and made themselves presentable. Belle had insisted on taking their time and her husband hadn't complained. Of course, the price of their casual morning was their separation once they got into town and now Gold found himself surrounded by emptiness in a shop filled to the brim with useless objects, the void pulling at his heart and keeping his mind from his work.

He sighed as he stood behind the counter, staring at his inventory ledger and wondering where on the page he had stopped paying attention to the lines and numbers and empty spaces. Every movement in the window caught his notice, making his eyes flick upward in anticipation of Belle's eventual return.

Realizing his head just wasn't in the job today, he put down his pen and reached into his breast pocket to pull out the jeweler's information. He studied the card again to confirm the address and took a step toward the door, which opened the instant he moved forward.

“Hey, Mister G!” A boisterous voice bounced from the walls as a young man struggled to both manage the handle and keep hold of a small cardboard box he was carrying.

“Ah. Mister Barker,” Gold said pleasantly as he tucked the card away. “What can do for you today?”

“I found something great this time,” the talkative man answered as he did his best impersonation of someone sauntering over to the counter. The movements were awkward, as was the mans' body language. In all the time he had been a customer, Alfred Barker never met Gold's gaze, and his fidgets, while never bothersome, implied there was more behind the odd behavior than a simple lack of social skills.

Alfred set the box on the counter, allowing gold to peer inside at the collection of gears and springs.

“You found a clock,” Gold announced, trying to cover his annoyance with a hint of surprise. One of Barker's other unusual habits was taking things apart. He did this with everything he found, then brought the heap of parts to Gold's shop with the expectation of having the item returned to proper working order.

“A clock!” Alfred repeated excitedly. “Sure did! So many gears and whatsits in that one.” He looked from the box to Gold expectantly.

Gold reached in to evaluate the damage and quirked up the corner of his mouth in a lopsided grin. “You do know that Marco would have this put together much faster than I could,” he suggested. “Have you thought about taking it to him?”

The younger man shrugged. “He doesn't always want to help me. He's too busy making stuff to stop working and put together what I take apart. He said so.”

“Well, I believe that,” Gold snorted, then gestured at the curtain dividing the work room from the front of the shop. “Care to watch the restoration process?”

“Oh boy, do I!” Alfred's eyes went wide with excitement and he almost clapped his hands in glee. “Sure, Mister G. I'd love to.”

The two worked quietly, first spreading out the parts on the work table, then gently assembling the clock's various parts one gear at a time. As he put the pieces together, Gold explained to Alfred what he was doing and answered questions about what each part was for and how they were essential to the working of the whole piece. Once the clock was functioning normally, he let Albert set the time, then walked him to the door and sent him on his way.

“You're very good with him.” The familiar voice made him smile.

Gold turned to see his wife standing behind one of the counters, duster in hand. “When did you get here?”

“About ten minutes ago?” She shrugged. “It hasn't been long, anyway. I didn't mind waiting. What did he make you fix this time?”

“A clock,” he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I don't mind telling him the probable history of these things he finds in his attic or his basement, but I _do_ wish he wouldn't insist on taking them to pieces _before_ he brings them in here.”

Belle put down the duster and crossed the room to wrap her arms around him. “You enjoy it,” she scolded.

“Maybe a little,” Gold admitted, curling his lips into one of his mock sneers that always drove her wild.

She pulled him closer for a long, deep kiss, her tongue dancing around his until they were both breathless from the effort. When neither of them had breath left, she pulled back enough to rasp out, “I brought us something to eat.”

Gold couldn't help letting out a hum of appreciation and let his hands wander down her back. “I see that.”

Belle laughed and nudged him away before pointing at a small bag in the corner. “I mean food. Just a few snacks to keep us until dinner.”

“Well, we _did_ eat a very late breakfast,” Gold reminded her.

“Only because you wanted a shower first,” Belle complained playfully as she crossed the room to set out the containers of cheeses and crackers and the small fruit salads, apologizing as she worked. “I only grabbed some things from the store...”

Gold shook his head. “It's lovely. Thank you.” His stomach let out a gentle rumble at the sight of the food and he quickly went about making a morsel by folding cheese onto a single cracker. “What time shall I get you from the library today?”

“Whenever you're done here,” Belle said simply, making a bite for herself. “I have plenty to do since I opened late.”

“Are you complaining about the morning's activities, Missus Gold?”

Belle pretended to be stung by the remark, pressing a hand to her chest and gasping sharply. “Why, Mister Gold, I would _never_...”

“Because if you'd prefer I rise earlier... I'm sure that can be arranged...” He kissed her then, a gentle peck on the cheek, before reaching around her to pick up a bit of fruit and popping it into his mouth.

She shivered, either at his proximity or because of the ideas that were growing in her mind. Gold left her to her flashes of daydream and bit into another cheese cracker, watching the look in her eye darken with delight.

Finally, Belle shook her head and cleared her throat. “I should, uh... I should get back to the library.”

“Can you wait a little while longer? There's something I need to attend to and I'd be grateful if you could watch the shop while I'm gone. It shouldn't take too long. Twenty minutes, perhaps?”

“Sure.” She shrugged casually, though there was a gleam in her eye that suggested she had plans for his return. “Are you expecting anyone in particular?”

Gold shook his head. “No, but after her comment the other day, I wouldn't be surprised if Sheriff Swan popped in just to see if we were... running a decent operation.” His eyebrows raised suggestively.

“I'll be prepared,” Belle whispered as she kissed him goodbye.

* * *

Circle of Life Jewelry was a store like most others. Tucked between similar quaint shops near the main part of town, it wasn't a busy place, but most specialty stores didn't need to be. Gold glanced in the large windows as he walked up to the entrance, noticing a wide variety of necklaces, bracelets, earrings, pins, and cuff links, each one an original piece. It made him wonder how the brothers made their living in Seattle. The display before him seemed to be proof enough that this craft was their true calling and yet everyone he knew in Storybooke had completely separate career paths in Weaver's reality.

The only hope he had of finding the brothers in Seattle was to use his time here to do some fact finding. Maybe he would learn about the Leone family's history or some specific personality traits that could give him clues as to who these brothers were in his other life and how the pin ended up as evidence in a murder case. He knew the _current_ owner of the object, all he had to do was ask the right questions.

As he opened the door to the shop, Gold was greeted by a smiling Harold Leone. “Why, if it isn't Mister Gold,” the jeweler almost sang. “Come to order something else for your wife? A necklace to match her new bracelet, perhaps?”

“Actually, I was curious about that green and yellow piece from the festival,” Gold said with a smile.

“Wonderful,” Harold beamed and turned to a wooden cabinet behind the main counter. From it he produced the pin in question. “It isn't every day that one of my pieces is requested,” he said as he set it on a dark mat for inspection.

Gold gestured at it, “May I?”

“Of course,” Harold beamed.

The gems glinted temptingly in the light as Gold lifted the pin and turned it one way, then another. He examined it closely, genuinely admiring the work, though the study itself was only meant to stroke the jeweler's ego. Once he had given the show time to take effect, he looked up hopefully. “Do you have any other pieces for sale?”

Harold let out a hum of displeasure. “I'm afraid that when it comes to the crafting of fine pieces, my brother ended up with all of the best genes. He is the master behind everything you see, while I... Well, I have been left to tasks less worthy of this store's greatness.”

The man was clearly proud of his own abilities, but his tone turned to a degrading huff once he mentioned his brother. There was some hostility there, Gold realized, much more than he had sensed the evening before. “I do have a personal fondness for this style,” Gold admitted, nodding at the piece in question. “Surely you can agree to a commission?”

“My brother does this work only as a hobby,” Roy announced as he entered from the back, a package in his arms. He passed the container to Harold and nodded at the shelving along the far wall. “I finished the latest pieces,” he announced. There was no command to set them on the displays, but the order was most certainly implied.

“Of course,” Harold said with slow nod, his eyes squinting in frustration. The contortion of his face revealed a nearly invisible scar that ran from eyebrow to cheek.

Roy turned to Gold with a wide, genuine smile on his face. “Now, how can I help you, Mister Gold?”

Gold shrugged. “I was actually inquiring after something similar to your brother's work,” he said lightly. “I had hoped to purchase something for myself, perhaps place an order for a custom piece.”

“Ah,” Roy said, his voice lowering conspiratorially as they continued talking. “You must understand, my brother has a very good mind for business, but his personality isn't quite the fit for a jeweler. I find that it is best to keep him steered to other tasks.”

“I see,” Gold said, though he didn't see at all. Out of the corner of his eye he watched as Harold exited the shop to talk with a delivery worker who had just arrived outside. “Well, the offer still stands, regardless.”

The shop owner lowered his head in acceptance. “I will keep that in mind for the future.”

Gold said his goodbyes and departed, nodding to Harold who vanished inside with whatever shipment had arrived. He raised his eyebrows in query at the worker, whose jacket read “Hal” on the breast pocket. “New stones, I assume?”

The other man simply nodded.

Gold thought of what Roy had said and asked, “Harold must be your boss, then?”

Another nod, though there was a shrug that followed.

“Have you ever seen him work with the jewelry?”

This question got an emphatic head shake, with an accompanying wild-eyed look of terror.

“I'll take that as a 'no,'” Gold said, smiling to remove the sting from his words. He gestured at the truck, then followed the driver to the opposite side, where they would be out of view from the shop's owners. “Has he always had the scar?”

Hal shrugged and made a fist, then swung at the air. His head tipped back sharply, as if suddenly making contact with something. He waved it off, the way someone would if the event acted out had happened a long time ago.

Gold almost purred. “I suppose he does have to be kept in his place.” He chuckled as if sharing an inside joke, hoping it would make it seem as if he knew the man personally. Hal only shrugged. “Well, thank you for your time. I won't keep you.”

As Gold strode back to his shop he sorted through the assumptions he had made of the Leone family story. Anger between brothers and a probable lust for power certainly made a recipe for disaster. He expected Harold held plenty of resentment toward his brother for not giving him a fair part in the company's production, but would that story hold true in Seattle, where the yellow and green pin sat in evidence?

Only the morning would tell.

* * *

Gold watched Belle prepare for bed with a heavy heart. He wasn't ready to lose her, not tonight. Their day may have started in sadness, but they had made up for it in the hours since, both in the shower and once he had returned to the shop to find a trail of clothing that lead to the back room. He felt himself warm at the memory of her perched on his work table wearing nothing at all. The disaster they created in the resulting lovemaking would be quite the chore to clean when he returned to work in the morning, but that was a price he was happy to pay for their time together.

Right now, he had this calm, blissful moment of simple existence, watching his wife go through her bedtime routine. He memorized each movement, the glow of the bathroom lights on her skin, the shine of her hair, the curves of her legs, and the shadow of her body that could just barely be made out through her night dress.

Lost in his studies, he forgot to duck away when she turned, and he found himself trapped in her startled gaze. She blinked at him in surprise, though her mouth twitched at the corners. “Oh... Did you want-”

“Not tonight,” he breathed, the tone gentle. He stepped forward to wrap himself around her and held her close, breathing in the scent of her. The exposed skin of Belle's shoulders was cool under his touch and his hands traveled up and down her arms in an affectionate caress as he closed his eyes against the impending loss of this reality.

“Let's go to sleep,” Belle whispered tenderly. She puled away when he nodded and guided him to their room, slipping under the covers only once he had bent to take his own side of their bed.

He stretched out beside her and in only a single breath they found themselves joined, drawn to each other like magnets, each to their usual places: Belle on her side with her head on his shoulder, Gold's arm tucked carefully under her to rest comfortably against her back. Now and then one of them made lazy caresses against the other, but the silence between them had grown, covering them like a comfortable blanket.

Together they rested, each pretending to sleep, but both unwilling to call attention to the ruse of slumber. Gold's mind wandered to Weaver's apartment in Seattle, where Gideon was waiting for him to wake up, even if the younger man didn't know it.

Unbidden, Gideon's smile filled the images of his memory. His perpetually childish grin radiating joy and reaching all the way to his sparkling eyes. He was all mischief, even in the most serious of times and Gold longed for their playful banter, until Belle shifted at his side and the reality of his curse hit him full force. To have his son, he must relinquish his time with his wife.

Gold needed them both. When had he so suddenly split into two halves of the same whole? How had his family existed in both places before the accident? Both of his doctors claimed that their reality was the only reality, but that couldn't be true. Still he had accepted it as easily as his need to take breath. 

“You're thinking of Gideon.” Belle broke in to his thoughts with a whisper. Her hand settled on his chest to reassure him of her presence. Gold took in a deep breath as he used the contact to ground himself in his life with her.

“I keep seeing his smile,” he admitted.

“I hear his laugh sometimes,” she confessed in turn. “I know I don't really hear it, but I remember it.”

Gold nodded and the silence came over them again, until Belle's hand reached up to caress his cheek. She wiped at tears that he didn't realize he had shed and the gesture proved to be too much. His face contorted into a grimace of pain and a loud sob escaped him. “I'm a terrible father,” he said, unaware the words had actually come out until her head lifted from his shoulder.

“How can you say that? You were devoted to Gideon.” Belle's shock was evident, but soft and restrained at the same time. She was supporting him, even in her confusion.

He shook his head, shedding more tears. “I want you,” he said as he wept. “I could have him, but I want you.”

Suddenly the life was squeezed out of him by his wife's desperate embrace. “This wasn't a choice you made between us,” she said with a strength and certainty as true as her grip on his quivering form.

“You don't know...” was all he could manage in response as his guilt and sorrow consumed him. How could he want to stay awake here when he knew his son awaited him elsewhere? Gideon's smile returned, his sparkling eyes full of life that would never again shine in _this_ existence with Belle. He tried to hear the laughter, as she had, but all he could concentrate on was the realization that this smile would never come again. It was lost to them, as was the joy that had been such a part of Gideon's personality. The spark of his life was as untouchable as the sky.

He fought sleep, craving the comfort of Belle's arms, clinging to the memory of their son's wide grin, but in the end exhaustion claimed him, taking the vision with it.

* * Weaver * *

The moon's cool glow played on the tousled sheets in such a way that when Weaver opened his eyes, he was convinced Belle was curled up beside him. He sighed with relief, stretching out his arm to caress her, only to be met with the cold reality of an empty mattress.

“Belle?” Her name came out as a croak, pressed through his throat only through sheer determination. 

He reached again, frantically, his hand darting back and forth in the empty space, searching for any sign that she had once rested beside him, but the sheets were cold and the mattress flat from disuse. In a fit of rage he swept out at the night stand, toppling the clock and lamp, both of which went clattering to the floor. He registered the sharpness of something breaking, but knew something had broken only when he stumbled from the bed and fell to his knees, glass from the shattered bulb slicing through his hand.

“Papa!” The call came from the hallway as Gideon rushed to the room, flung open the door and hurried to his father's side. “Papa, what happened?”

Weaver tried to speak, but in his absolute grief words failed him. All he could do was sob as his body rocked forward and leaned back in an instinctive effort to find some kind of consolation.

“Papa, you're bleeding.”

Suddenly Weaver felt his hand pulled forward, into a beam of moonlight that pierced the window. The blood he noticed seemed to be from another time, another world, another life. “Belle,” he whispered. “Oh, Belle...”

Gideon released his father's hand to tug his own nightshirt off and wrap it gently against his father's wound, whispering as he worked. For several minutes Weaver heard nothing but the melodic tone over his own cries of desperation, but the pressure of Gideon's arms around his body soon stilled him.

“I'm sorry,” Weaver managed to rattle out after a time. “I'm a terrible father... a monster...”

“No, Papa,” his son assured him in a gentle voice. “You're not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Names in this chapter:  
Alfred in this case means counsel and Barker is a reference to his constant chattering.  
Hal is short for Halvard, a name which means rock guardian. You have probably guessed who almost everyone in this chapter is by now, so yes, this is Ed.
> 
> * * 
> 
> The final two sections of this story I wrote in memory of a friend, who passed away on Sunday. As a public figure, news of his death came to us the way it did for everyone else... through a sudden explosion of posts on the internet. For the first few days all I could see was the smile that always reached his eyes. I woke in the middle of the night in shock over not being able to see that smile again or feel his energy light up a room. May he now be filled with all of the light that he wished upon the world. He is greatly missed.


	5. Chapter 5

The files on the King murder case arrived at Weaver’s desk twenty seven minutes after the detective had gotten there himself, tossed casually onto the top of the small, cardboard moving box which contained his things. Weaver looked up at the sound, but not at the person who had caused it. “Thanks.”

“This is a favor, Weaver,” the chief grumbled. “And since I’m doing something for you, I expect you to do something in return.”

Catching a snappish remark before it could escape, Weaver dropped his pen to the table and leaned back in his chair. He glanced up at the captain and folded his arms across his chest to prevent lashing out at the other man, something he was certain he would be prone to doing for the next few weeks, until things settled down. Having been thrust into a new office, with a new partner, hadn’t done much to raise Weaver’s opinion of his superior or the decisions made by any of the department’s top decision makers. He assumed this negotiation wasn’t going to end well. 

Once it was clear that a response was not forthcoming, the captain cleared his throat uncomfortably, his demeanor shifting to one of uncertainty, though his expression was as hard as stone. “I had a chat with Gorman today.”

The news wasn’t a shock, but it wasn’t what Weaver wanted to hear, either. “That gnat cleared me for duty. She can’t go back on that.” He snarled out the truth as if he were a dog ready to bite the hand of the woman who, he was certain, had just changed his fate.

“Not without reason,” the captain admitted. “And I’d say your actions yesterday gave me plenty of reason to consult with her about our current arrangement.”

“What we discuss in her office is confidential.” Weaver put his hands on the surface of his desk and pushed himself up to his full height, which wasn’t anywhere near the captain’s, but didn’t need to be. The detective came with a most convenient reputation of being a total bad ass, one he had meticulously grown himself from a tiny seed planted so long ago that he couldn’t remember it. That reputation came in handy for these little staredowns. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of that.”

The captain raised both hands as if he’d had a gun pulled on him, but didn’t back away. “I wasn’t given any details and I didn’t ask,” he insisted sternly. “But I have a _right_ to question her judgment of the competence of any man in this precinct after they live through a traumatic event. It goes with the job, Weaver, and if you can’t handle that, I’ll show you the door right now. You’ve already got your things packed, the departure can be seamless.”

Weaver glared at the box on his desk. “Had to move it from _my_ old office,” he grunted. “Hadn’t gotten around to unpacking it yet.”

Two photos stood in contrast to that statement, their glass glinting under the room’s fluorescent lighting. In one, Weaver stood with a smiling Gideon, dressed in his graduation gown, in another he and his wife were leaning forward over a small dinner table, foreheads pressed together, eyes locked as if nothing else in the world mattered to either of them. Belle had taken the first photo, their son had stalked them on a date night with the family camera and taken the other as a gift for their anniversary. It was the essence of what his family was, and the one thing Weaver truly cherished.

The other man glanced at these images, and the blue and white chipped teacup filled with steaming liquid, but said nothing to contradict Weaver’s statement. “Deal is, you get this case and in exchange you continue to visit Gorman’s office on a regular basis.”

“She _cleared_ me for duty!” Weaver paced from the desk and ran his hand through his hair in a desperate attempt to keep himself from spinning around with a full punch and breaking the captain’s jaw. Through the office window, he could see Rogers hovering at the front desk, eyes darting nervously to their shared space. _Coward,_ thought Weaver. If the man couldn’t face a little conflict in the office, there was _no_ telling how he’d react to trouble in the streets.

“Look,” the captain drew his attention back to the room they were in. “It’s not about you, it’s about the situation. Anyone who goes through a traumatic event _has_ to go through the same evaluations you’re going through. You’re not the only one in this building who lost people you care about and you don’t get any special privileges over anyone else who went through the same process. You got that?”

Weaver sighed, then nodded. “Sure.”

Quick to continue, the other man practically spoke over Weaver’s reply. “You want to keep this job? You go see Gorman once a week. You let her do _her_ job and you can keep doing _yours._” He paused to stare Weaver down, eyes cold as ice as a silence grew between them. “Are we clear on what the consequences are going to be if I get a call telling me you missed a single minute of your scheduled time in that office?”

“Crystal,” Weaver snarled, remembering that blue trinket on the shelf and imagining _he_ had been the one to sweep it to the floor of the shrink’s office instead of whatever accident had seen its demise in Maine.

“Good.” The captain nodded and stepped out of the room, making way for Rogers, who ducked in meekly and scurried over to his chair at the unoccupied desk.

The detective opened his mouth, then closed it, obviously wanting to come up with some kind of greeting but unable to fumble through his uncertainties to find something appropriate. In the end, the quiet extinguished any hope of even a simple “good morning” fitting into the space between them and silence consumed the room.

Ignoring the awkwardness, Weaver snatched up the file and dropped into his chair. His eyes flew over the text, hoping to catch some glimpse of a familiar name, but page after page of information contained only mention of the Kings and no one by the name of Harold or the family name Leone. The family consisted of Derek King, his brother Walter, and an unnamed son, mentioned only as the sole witness who had seen his father dangling from the railing, lose his grip, and fall. If the boy had a mother, she’d had so little to do with the case that it wasn’t worth a mention. Weaver sighed and threw himself back in his chair, eyes lifting to the ceiling. The Leones couldn’t be the Kings. As far as he’d been aware, the brothers in Storybrooke were both childless. Had he missed something between them? No, the pin was the key to all of it, he was certain. It nagged at him, staring into his soul and pulling at his mind like an itch impossible to scratch. He just needed a longer stick to reach it with.

“Nothing there?” Rogers finally spoke up.

“Oh, it’s there,” Weaver snarled. “I’ve met the man who made that pin and I know for a _fact_ that he wouldn’t have let it out of his sight.”

He heard the scratch of paper being drawn across his desk, but didn’t have it in him to snap at his new partner for “looking over his shoulder.” Instead, he closed his eyes and waited to hear what the other man would come up with.

“Murder happened in the warehouse district,” he read aloud, predictably repeating what they already knew. “At the Recycled Living Toys factory.”

An image flashed before Weaver’s mind; the card in Gold’s hand and the words “Circle of Life Jewelry” practically leaping from the paper. The suggested similarities between Recycled Living and Circle of Life could _not_ be a coincidence. “What’d you say?”

“Recycled Living Toys,” Rogers said as he looked up. “I’ve heard of that place. They’re all about sustainability and protecting the ‘web of life’ or some other predictably catchy motto. They were on the news a while back, someone trying to bring claims of false advertising.” He shrugged. “Never really paid attention to it, but I suppose it makes sense if the company changed hands after King’s death.”

Weaver leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “Exactly _whose_ hands did it change to?”

Rogers flipped through a few pages before stopping on one, which he eyed suspiciously until one eyebrow raised. 

Weaver didn’t need to hear the answer, he knew what it would be. “Let me guess,” he hissed. “The brother.”

* *  
Weaver pulled his car up to the outside of the factory building owned by Recycled Living Toys and scowled at the structure as if answers to the family’s story were written within the layers of obviously new graffiti that plastered the brick facade. From the passenger seat, Rogers let out a grunt of confusion. “You get the feeling this place was clean not long ago?”

The assumption was, yet again, an obvious one to a seasoned detective like Weaver, but he was honestly surprised that Rogers had noticed. He turned a half smile at the other man, ready to test him. “The wet spray paint give it away?”

“No,” Rogers huffed as he got out of the car and slammed the door, an action that forced Weaver to do the same. The taller man approached the wall and paced a few steps in one direction, then nodded to himself and pointed at some structural damage by one of the giant, arched windows. “This bit here was repaired,” he said as he caressed the recent mortar work joining two of the bricks. “Clean repair, too. You wouldn’t notice except for the change in color.”

In fact, Weaver hadn’t noticed, but now that his partner had pointed it out, the difference in shade between old mortar and new stood out like a neon sign in the dark. “It’s worn, though,” he pointed out. “Can’t be a repair made this year.”

“This one’s more recent.” The other detective moved to a point farther down the wall, where the work stuck out from behind a monstrous letter S, painted in an array of brilliant blues and bordered in black. It spread upwards above both of their heads, but couldn’t hide itself behind the artist’s work or its distance from their reach. This job was obviously slipshod, the joining material not only filling the cracks in the brick, but smearing around them, some of it crumbled away, revealing the crack it had been used to hide. “And here,” Rogers continued as he back stepped behind Weaver to a point near the original broken seam, where yellow from a crisp, new cuss word dipped into the gap with ease. “This one they didn’t even bother with.”

“Makes you wonder if that news report wasn’t just about loss in product quality.” There was no denying his partner’s observational powers and Weaver was forced to nod his acceptance. “Good work, Rogers. You’ll make a proper detective one day,” he said as he gave the man’s back a good natured slap. “Now, let’s see what we find inside.”

The pair went to the first, steel colored door, clearly marked as the entrance, but found it locked. Surprised at this discovery, they tried several others, walking around the building with no success. Each turned out to be tightly secured and though the detectives called and occasionally pounded their fists on the parched wood as they wandered the property, no one came to direct them to the proper entrance. The company’s desire to not only bolt the main door, but hide the true entrance made Weaver question the legitimacy of the factory’s operation even more. As they continued their efforts, he let his mind wander back to Storybrooke and the Leone brothers. Roy had always been pleasant, yet there was something there, something about him that went against his brother’s best interests. He seemed to hold the man back, protect customers from interactions with him. Standing at a seemingly abandoned building that claimed in all its paperwork to be fully functional, Weaver was beginning to have fewer doubts over which of the King brothers would be matched to which of the Leones.

With no warning, a door he passed swung open behind him and Weaver spun on his heel, hand instinctively hovering at his gun. The ever-eager Rogers drew his weapon at the noise, identifying himself as he whirled around, but Weaver stretched up a hand to still him. “It’s an unarmed worker, ‘mate,’” he scoffed as he pushed Rogers’ arm gently downward. “Let’s try not to terrorize the civilians.”

The employee at the door ducked back inside and the two detectives hurried after him only to freeze in the entry so that their eyes could adjust to the change in light. Both detectives stared in amazement into the dark that held only a few randomly scattered machines, all of which were eerily silent. 

“Didn’t you say this place was still in production?” Weaver glanced at Rogers.

The other man nodded. “I did.”

“What’re they producing?” He stiffened his back as he glared at the inactivity around them. “Invisibility potions?” A glance around the space told him the worker who had let them in was nowhere to be seen.

“Could use some of those, actually,” Rogers almost chuckled. “Make it easier to do the job.”

“Well, good detectives wouldn’t need ‘em,” Weaver reminded him as he strode away to a staircase that led to a catwalk and the upper level.

Rogers hesitated, then quietly called out behind him. “Where are _you_ going?”

Weaver pointed at the large glass room on the second floor. “The office,” he said with amusement. “You know, where the people in charge hang out and complain about the uselessness of their underlings?”

An eyeroll followed Weaver’s snarky comment and he grinned as he turned back to the stairs, heading to them with purpose. He resisted the urge to take them two at a time, though the temptation to force Rogers to keep up was a strong one. 

The office was nestled into the corner of the factory’s tiny upper level and had been created by the installation of two glass walls against the two rough brick ones. It was a practical space, meant to provide some quiet for the people in charge, while allowing them to keep an eye on production below. Surprisingly, the company’s logo of animals silhouetted by a radiant sun was faded on the bricks, a chalk outline scribbled over the old paint in what was obviously an abandoned attempt to redesign the image. Weaver tried to make out what the design was supposed to be, but gave up quickly.

“No one here,” Rogers said as he caught up.

“Brilliant deduction,” Weaver snapped, more angry at himself than at his partner. If anyone was in charge of the building, he was _certain_ this is where they would be.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?” A familiar voice oozed from the air behind them and Weaver grinned.

“Harold,” he almost sang as he turned to meet the man he already knew.

“Walter, actually,” the factory owner corrected with a seemingly genuine grin. The name had changed, but the man’s face was identical to the one Gold had known in Storybrooke. “One of the workers said they let you in, so I’ll ask again… Is there something you need?”

Rogers jumped in, feet first, to the heart of their visit. “We’ve come about your brother’s murder case.”

Walter’s eyes went wide, revealing the hint of a scar within the single brow. “’Murder?’” He shook his head and gestured to the office as he spoke. “But I was just told that his case went cold and was determined to be an accident for lack of other evidence.”

“It was,” Weaver said as he entered the office. He watched Walter Leone practically strut to the only desk and claim his seat, leaving the detectives standing. _Smart move,_ he thought. _Make everyone stand at your mercy._

“Well, then I don’t see what more can be done.” The man leaned back in his pristine office chair, undoubtedly the newest piece of furniture in the building, and steepled his fingers. “After I found my dear brother lying on the floor by that horrible machine, I watched your people inspect every inch of this building. Yes, they found signs of a struggle, but the only other person here that night was his son, who saw everything, and I promise you his description of events hasn’t changed since.”

“He said he saw his father fall over the railing,” Rogers pointed out. “He never said _how_ it happened.”

The factory owner scowled and leaned forward. “You couldn’t be blaming my favorite nephew.”

“He’s your _only_ nephew,” Weaver huffed, recalling the Leone family records. “And he left town right after the accident.”

Walter waved his hand through the air. “Oh, he went across the country to stay with some friends of our family,” he explained casually. “I had far too much work with the factory to give him all of the attention a young man could need, especially one who witnessed such a horrible tragedy.”

This caught Weaver’s attention as easily as the loud buzzing of a bee in his ear. “So your family goes through a crisis and you ship your _favorite_ nephew off to live with people he barely knows?”

“Now, I _did_ say they were family friends.” Walter stood from his chair. “I hope that clears up whatever questions you had, gentlemen. If you will excuse me, I have a shipment of supplies due in any minute now and I must see to their storage.”__

_ _Rogers smiled and nodded, though his eyes twitched as they took in their surroundings again and threatened to narrow. “Guess you need those supplies as soon as possible to get things up and running again?”_ _

_ _“The company has had a change of direction,” Walter told him in a tone that was far too flat to be completely honest. Both the detectives waited for more information on the subject, but received nothing beyond a pleasant dispatching. “I assume you know the way out. Good day, Detectives. I really must see to that arrival.”_ _

_ _Weaver could hear a faint, persistent beeping approaching outside, a sure sign of a new delivery. “Of course,” he said easily. “We’ll be on our way.” He tossed a thumb over his shoulder at the office door, before turning to Rogers with a curt, “Let’s go. We’re done here.”_ _

_ _Rogers nodded to Walter and excused the pair of them from Walter’s company before following. He was unbearably polite and it was really grating, but Weaver decided to use that to his advantage, marching silently on and letting his frustrations stew until they were ready to explode. It would only be a matter of breaths, he knew, and he would time it to happen right when he needed it to. Rogers wouldn’t be able to take the silence for long, it was a bait impossible for him to refuse, and the result would be a treat Weaver knew just how to savor._ _

_ _“So do you think its ‘Recycled Living’ because the toys are made from recycled materials or ‘Living Toys’ because they’re animals made out of recycled stuff?” Rogers’ voice hovered behind him as they clanked down the metal stairs and made their way back through the open factory. _ _

_ _“I don’t know and I don’t bloody care,” Weaver snarled as they walked, keeping a brisk pace to time his exit just right. He heard a humph of either dissatisfaction or confusion from Rogers._ _

_ _“Just seems a strange name for a company-”_ _

_ _Weaver stopped under the frame of the open factory door and spun on his partner. “I said. I. Don’t. Care.” Farther down the brick exterior, he could see a large, white truck pulling up to a loading dock. Right on time. “Take out your phone.”_ _

_ _“My phone?” Rogers wrinkled his brow in confusion._ _

_ _“Yes, your damned phone!” Weaver hissed the words. “Take it out and pretend you’ve got a call.”_ _

_ _Though he was still very confused, Rogers reached for his pocket and Weaver began to walk away. _ _

_ _He rolled his eyes as he listened to the other man stumble over an obviously faked conversation and allowed himself two more steps before spinning around to come at his partner with a vengeance. In a single sweeping motion, he swatted the man’s arm down and snatched the device from the gloved, false hand, then brandished it at the man’s face as if the object were contraband. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”_ _

_ _“What you _said_!” Rogers squared his shoulders and stepped up to meet Weaver’s icy glare. “And quite frankly, I’m a little confused as to why!”_ _

_ _Weaver didn’t answer, only walked in the direction of their car._ _

_ _“Now look,” Rogers called after him as he caught up. “I’ve been pretty tolerant of the way things have been going up until now, but I don’t see-”_ _

_ _“What you need to _see_… _Detective_, is that _I’m_ the one in charge here. I’ve got more experience than you and I think by now you’ve figured out that I’m used to doing things _my_ way.” Weaver snapped at his partner until they reached the car, then shot a poignant look at the delivery truck’s solitary guardian. He would have loved to claim responsibility for the relatively slight distance between their car and the truck, but that had been a pure gift of fate. Still, he wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass them up, and began patting his pockets. “Where’d I put my keys?”_ _

_ _Thankfully, Rogers kept silent and after a beat, actually seemed to make an effort at a search. “Leave ‘em in the office?”_ _

_ _“Not likely,” Weaver retorted before looking up at the truck driver. “Hang on,” he told Rogers as he walked away, hand in the air in greeting, voice raised to reach the stranger’s ears. “Hey. You didn’t happen to see a set of keys out here, did you?”_ _

_ _The man shook his head vehemently, a motion Weaver recognized as Gold. Luck had hit them again. The delivery man was the same mute who was all too eager to answer questions. The detective smiled at him as he moved closer. “You sure?” He pretended to search the ground as he moved, patting his pockets until he reached the truck, then deftly drew out his badge and flashed it before tucking it away again. “No one’s in trouble here,” he said quietly. “I came to see about Derek’s murder. He _was_ murdered, wasn’t he?”_ _

_ _Another vicious nod._ _

_ _“That boy? His son? He pushed him off the balcony?”_ _

_ _This got a resounding no, which surprised Weaver._ _

_ _“Then why send him away? Unless…” He heard Rogers’ footsteps approaching, but ignored them. “The boy saw what really happened.”_ _

_ _The delivery man’s head bobbed up and down, his eyes wide with terror._ _

_ _“It’s fine, mate,” Rogers murmured. “You’re not in any trouble here, we just want answers. Is the kid safe?”_ _

_ _A shrug._ _

_ _Weaver waved the question off. “Forget the kid. I’m guessing you saw the whole thing too, am I right?” He took the other man’s lack of an answer as an affirmative response. “Look,” he said in a tone that he hoped would radiate a sincere air of confidentiality between them. “I’ve got evidence that says Walter was involved. He used to wear a pin, right? Looked like a green and yellow eye?”_ _

_ _The silent man’s eyes went wide and his head shifted slightly in another nod while his tongue licked nervously at his lips._ _

_ _“You got email?” Another nod had Weaver waved at Rogers. “Give him a card.” Once the item on order was out for display, Weaver snatched it up and passed it discreetly over. “Send us what you know. Either tell us what you saw or give us the name of someone who’s willing to talk. You got that? Walter’s reign over this little kingdom rests in your hands.”_ _

_ _Nervously, the man fidgeted with the card, studied it and tucked it away. He nodded once._ _

_ _“Good man,” Weaver told him with a smile before looking up expectantly at Rogers, who gave him a blank look in return. Weaver rolled his eyes. “I assume you came over because you found the keys?”_ _

_ _“Yeah.” His partner blurted before deftly tossing a set of keys his way. _ _

_ _Weaver managed to catch the flying objects before they made contact with his face. They weren’t his, but he picked out the single car key among the rest and nodded again at the man they had just interrogated before turning away. He didn’t say anything until both he and Rogers were back in the car, doors firmly shut. “Nice,” he admitted as he tossed the man’s keys back to him._ _

_ _“Learned from the best,” Rogers beamed cheekily in return. He fell silent as the car started up and they pulled from the lot, turning onto the road and away from the miserable scene they had just been a part of. “How’d you know there would be someone with the truck? And that he’d, well… ‘talk?’”_ _

_ _The previous day’s encounters at the jewelry shop in Storybrooke flashed through Weaver’s mind as he drove, but he wasn’t about to tell Rogers the truth of it. Again he was faced with the dilemma of what to actually say and “he’s a man from my dreams” was most certainly going to give his partner the wrong idea. He settled for, “Hunch. I heard the truck arriving, I knew it was near our car.”_ _

_ _Rogers glanced over at him. “You think he’ll get us the information?”_ _

_ _“He’d better,” Weaver sighed. “Without an eyewitness, we don’t have a case.”_ _

_ _* *_ _

_ _Weaver dropped his keys onto the entry table and in a long, slow breath before kicking the door shut with the heel of his shoe. The solid wood slammed into place with enough force to rattle the windows in the adjacent living room. He opened his eyes and practically hauled himself to the kitchen, desperate for some tea and a comfortable chair. It had been a long, annoying day and he was more than ready to find some peace and quiet in the comfort of his own home. _ _

_ _As soon as his foot touched the kitchen’s linoleum flooring, he caught sight of something flying through the air, heard the woosh of it hurling at him, and whirled backward, spinning around the door frame, crouching low and hoping to avoid further detection as he heard glass shatter against the wall. “Seattle P.D.!” The words shot from him out of the same instinct that had, quite literally, saved his skin._ _

_ _“Sorry!” A familiar female voice shouted from the other room. “Sorry!” There was a shuffling of feet and the scuffing of furniture before part of a familiar face popped around into view._ _

_ _“Tilly?” Weaver stood up and checked his surroundings. “What the hell are you doing here? Besides trying to kill me with my own glassware.”_ _

_ _She shrugged. “Gideon invited me.” The words were sheepish and apologetic. “It’s just what I was holding when you came in…”_ _

_ _Weaver moved into the room and caught sight of Gideon, whose hands were tightly grasping one of the kitchen chairs, which was quite a distance from their table. “Murdered by my own son and his best friend,” he groaned playfully. “Well, that’d end the day better than it started.” He nodded at the chair. “For future reference, that’s the better idea.”_ _

_ _“Got it,” Tilly said with a grin. “Let me get the broom for you.”_ _

_ _As the girl hurried off to their small utility closet, Gideon replaced the chair and moved to his father’s side, eyes full of concern. “It sounded like someone had broken in,” he explained as he eyed him from head to toe. “Sit down, I’ll make your tea.”_ _

_ _“Thanks.” The chair creaked as Weaver dropped into it, giving up his body’s comfort for the emotional balm provided by his son’s proximity._ _

_ _“You said it was a hard day,” Gideon pressed gently as he put water in the kettle. “Is it just because this was your first one back, or was it the case?”_ _

_ _“A little bit of everything.”_ _

_ _Tilly returned then, broom in hand, and went to work on clearing up the shards of glass. “A little bit of everything is better than all of one wrong thing, though. Right?” _ _

_ __Chipper as ever,_ thought Weaver. _How does the girl do it?_ He sighed and wanted to argue against her point, but found that he couldn’t. Instead he gave a single nod as Gideon handed over a cup of steaming tea. “I suppose.” He took a sip, though the liquid was far too hot, and relished the burn he felt. “You staying for dinner?”_ _

_ _Gideon shifted his weight from one foot to the other and fidgeted with the corner of a dish towel that had been left on the counter. “We, um.. Thought we’d go see a movie, but we can stay home if you want company.”_ _

_ _“No, no.” Weaver hissed down another sip of tea and shook his head, both against the discomfort and against his son’s offer. “You two go ahead. Honestly, I was hoping to shower and lounge on the couch in my underwear for the rest of the night.”_ _

_ _“Definitely leaving you to that, then,” Tilly announced with a snap of her fingers. “I’ll just get my coat.”_ _

_ _As the girl hurried out of the room, Gideon joined his father at the table. “You sure it’s okay?”_ _

_ _Weaver reached a hand out and rested it on his son’s shoulder. “Yeah. It’s fine,” he said, giving it a squeeze of affection. “I’m waiting up, though. Just in case anyone tries to break in.”_ _

_ _Gideon laughed. “Well, that’s what it sounded like, Papa!” For this, he received a shove from his father, which he pretended had knocked him from the chair. He stumbled playfully across the room, righting himself as he reached the hall. “I’ll drop Tilly at her place and be back right after. Promise.”_ _

_ _“Have fun,” Weaver told him, raising his tea in a toast. He stayed at the table until he heard the front door shut, then pushed away from it with a groan. “Right then,” he said to the empty air. “Hot water for the rest of me.”_ _

_ _* *_ _

_ _Though he had only been joking with the kids about his plans for the evening, by the time he had showered, Weaver decided that such an easy shot at embarrassing his son was too good to pass up. So, despite his better judgment and a growing unease at the idea, he pulled on some underwear, made himself another cup of tea, then settled on the couch, remote in hand. The rest of his time alone was spent flicking through channel after channel in search of something that wasn’t a cop show, murder mystery, or the news. In the end, he left on the antiques show and settled back into the cushions for an evening of peeking into the lives of total strangers, an activity which he tried to convince himself wasn’t at all suspiciously perverted, given his state of dress._ _

_ _Gideon arrived just as a man from the Midwest had discovered that his great grandfather’s pocket watch wasn’t worth as much as he had expected. “I’m back,” he said as he shut the door, then let out a “Woah!” before shuffling down the hall to hang his coat. “Could have told me you weren’t kidding!”_ _

_ _Weaver laughed. “Actually, I just wanted to see what you’d do,” he called back. “I’ve got some house pants folded on the dryer if you-” The pants in question promptly hit him in the face._ _

_ _“You’ve always got pants on the dryer these days,” Gideon teased as he plopped down beside his father. “Doesn’t bother me really,” he admitted at last. “It just… doesn’t seem like you.”_ _

_ _“I don’t quite feel like me today, to be honest,” he said wearily as he put each leg into the pants, then stood to pull them up. “Want anything? I’m making more tea.”_ _

_ _“When do I cut you off?”_ _

_ _“Funny,” Weaver huffed back. “You want something or not?”_ _

_ _Gideon shook his head and turned his attention to the television. “I’m okay. Hey, isn’t this that show Mother always watched?”_ _

_ _“Well, she watched it _with_ me,” Weaver corrected as he left the room, raising his voice to be heard through the distance. “But I’m the one who always put it on.”_ _

_ _“Really?” The surprise in his son’s voice was evident. “I didn’t know you liked this kind of stuff.”_ _

_ _Surprise consumed Weaver until water from the kettle began to overflow over his hand and he quickly shut off the tap. He left the kettle to boil and stepped back to the living room, frowning down at his son. “Don’t you remember the old place? Your mum used to give me hell for all those antiques I kept.”_ _

_ _Gidoen looked up in confusion. “What old place?”_ _

_ _“Well, where we lived before-” Weaver cut himself off, swallowing the realization that Gideon had no memory of his previous life, his time in Storybrooke. His mind tumbled over this new reality and the knowledge that from the moment of the accident onward Weaver truly was leading completely separate lives. “No, that’s… that’s just where I meet your mother in my dreams. I must be getting tired. Long day, mixing up my memories, I guess. Probably time to turn in.”_ _

_ _His son stood and came over to him, eyes full of concern. “Are you certain everything is all right, Papa?”_ _

_ _“I’m fine,” Weaver insisted. “Just tired, but if you want, I’ll talk to Doctor Gorman about it in my next visit.”_ _

_ _“So you are going back?” Gideon clicked off the television as his father returned to the now screaming tea kettle._ _

_ _“Have to,” Weaver grunted. “It’s regular visits or my ass out the door. I was told as much this morning.”_ _

_ _The boy sighed and leaned against the counter, arms crossed over his chest. “Well, maybe that’s a good thing. I mean, at least for now.” Weaver shrugged, not willing to commit to it being either a positive or negative outcome. It was what it was and there wasn’t anything that could be done about it. Accepting the lack of response as a cue to move on, Gideon shot him a winning smile. “You going to see mother tonight?”_ _

_ _Weaver actually blushed, which earned a nudge from his son. “I’d better,” he retorted. “Have to give you more material to lecture me on, right?”_ _

_ _Gideon shrugged and headed for the stairs, then paused at the bottom to look over his shoulder. “If you see her, tell her I love her. Okay?”_ _

_ _His heart sank and lifted at the same time. This was what kept Weaver from labeling one life or the other as only a dream. This was what was keeping him going in either of the realities that the accident had created. Though Belle had no idea of his dreams about Hyperion Heights, at least Gideon was aware that his mother was out there, in some other space, able to be reached by someone. “Sure,” Weaver promised. “As soon as I see her.”_ _

_ _“Or… wait ‘til you’re dressed?” Gideon’s eyes held a glint of mischief as he dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time._ _

_ _Though Gideon’s words were meant as a playful tease, Weaver’s heart broke as he watched his son vanish into the rooms upstairs. For the briefest of moments he held the hope of his two lives joining together into something that could, in some misshapen way, resemble normal; a boy’s message of love to his mother, passed along by the father who was about to go visit her. To anyone else, this would have been just another day, but to him, it was the end of hope. Gideon didn’t believe. He was just playing along._ _

_ _The kettle sang and Weaver reached to pour the hot water to his cup, but sighed and dumped it down the drain instead. He was tired and broken and he needed to feel whole again. Sitting around down here wasn’t going to cut it. He needed Belle, he needed her gentle touch and her whispered promises that everything was going to be okay._ _

_ _Weaver washed and dried what dishes needed cleaning, listening to the noises of a half-empty house and thanking his lucky stars that his son had chosen to attend a local college with the option to live at home. There was no telling what his life would be like without Gideon there to warm it, to fill the silences and brighten the darkness. He listened to the footsteps upstairs, the sound of the bathroom sink, the tap of a toothbrush, the creak of floorboards and the thump of shoes dropping to the floor It was the same ritual every night, yet tonight each sound felt like a gift to be clung to and cherished._ _

_ _Brushing wet hands on his jeans to dry them, he flicked off the light and climbed the stairs, his steps light out of habit more than necessity. The light in Gideon’s room was already dark and Weaver quietly went about his own nightly routine before stepping to his bedroom and blinking in surprise. Fresh sheets were folded on the dresser, ready for the morning, bringing a smile to the detective’s face and tears to his eyes. The boy loved his mother, he always had. They shared a love of books and a thirst for knowledge that Weaver suspected was unequal to that of anyone else in the world, but gestures like this were proof that the same love was given to him, quietly and unconditionally. It stabbed at his heart, leaving a welcome pain spun from guilt and loneliness._ _

_ _Tempting as it was to reverse his course, step into his son’s room, and check on him, Weaver forced himself to crawl into bed. It was time to see his wife, to be held and caressed to the point of exhaustion. Resting his head on his pillow, he whispered into the night. “Goodnight, son. See you after tomorrow.” As his eyes closed, his hand caressed the unused pillow beside him, feeling the cold fabric of an unused pillowcase. The last thing he remembered as Weaver was the thought of the sheer uselessness of the item’s existence. _ _

_ _* * Gold * *_ _

_ _Gold blinked open his eyes and stretched lazily in bed, the movement drawing attention to its singular occupancy. He stared lazily into the room, but found no sign of Belle and bolted upright, ears trained for the faintest sound. When none came, he flung the bedclothes from his naked form, jumped to his feet and padded to the top of the stairs to call down to the first floor. “Belle?” _ _

_ _No answer followed and he hurried to the bedroom window, peering through it in search of the car that was usually parked out front. It was gone. “No,” he murmured as he tried to open the window which was stuck fast from dried paint and years of disuse. He spun to face the room, searching for signs of life beyond his own. “No, no, no.”_ _

_ _He made a mad dash for Gideon’s old room, throwing open the door and running inside. “Gideon!” If the car was gone, maybe the accident hadn’t happened, maybe the whole thing had been a dream, a horrible nightmare that had finally ended. The room was just as Gideon had left it, tidy except for the piles of books that filled every flat surface. The neatly made bed hadn’t been slept in. _ _

_ _From there, a thorough search of the house began, each door opened and every room shouted into. Top to bottom, Gold rushed his way through the building, ignoring his state of complete undress in his utter panic. Why had he thought about the empty bed before falling asleep as Weaver? Were the doctors right? Were these only dreams, created by his subconscious to help him cope with the fact that he was totally and utterly alone? Every night until last night he had fallen asleep thinking of his family and every morning he had opened his eyes to find that either Belle or Gideon was still a part of his life. Was that chain now broken?_ _

_ _Gold flew out of the kitchen and hurried to the basement, the chill in the morning air raising bumps on his skin, he fumbled in the clutter, calling out as he searched each dark corner, but found himself alone yet again. Running his hands through his hair, he clawed at his scalp in desperation, tears pouring from his eyes. “Wake up! Wake up!” But the nightmare he found himself in refused to go away._ _

_ _“There you are! What happened!?” The scream of anguish that came from the basement steps was music to Gold’s ears._ _

_ _He ran for the door and snatched Belle from where she stood, pulling her body against his and holding it tight. “I thought you were gone. I couldn’t find you.” He wept into her hair and squeezed her in desperation. _ _

_ _Somehow Belle managed to push the door closed, then reached her hands to his face and cupped it tenderly. “Look at me,” she whispered. “Open your eyes and look at me.” He did and she smiled, her lips curling upward in sympathy rather than joy, eyes wrinkling with worry. “Now, tell me what has you running naked through the house and why you ended up in the basement?”_ _

_ _“I don’t know,” he said, answering the last question first. “I couldn’t find you and… I… It was the last place I looked…”_ _

_ _Belle nodded as if she understood, though he was sure she hadn’t. “I got up to make breakfast,” she told him. When he opened his mouth to object, she finished her explanation in a rush. “We needed eggs.”_ _

_ _“You were at the store.” It was the most obvious thing in the world, now that Gold thought about it. “The car was gone because you were at the store.” His head lobbed to the side and contorted in pain as his emotions went wild, fluctuating from hurt to anger and guilt before settling on humiliation. Gold realized what he must look like then, naked in the basement, weeping like lost child, abandoned by his sanity._ _

_ _“Yes,” Belle agreed as she glanced around the room. “Now can we get you upstairs before anyone calls the sheriff to complain about the morning’s entertainment as delivered by the Golds?”_ _

_ _He smiled and felt a chuckle in his chest that simply caught and refused to come out. With a nod, he let go and reached for one of the old, worn out sheets that was now used as a drop cloth for painting. Fumbling with it, he managed to make a wrap of sorts for the sake of decency, then looked at her for approval._ _

_ _“Lucky, we don’t have to go far,” she teased and opened the door, then hurried up the steps, onto the back porch, and through to the kitchen._ _

_ _Gold wasn’t far behind, letting out a sigh of relief once he was safely inside. “I’m sorry, Belle.” He tried not to whine, but every word from his mouth seemed pathetic and meek. “I… I don’t know what came over me. I couldn’t find you and I thought… It must have been a dream.” How could he tell that he worried he had dreamed her out of existence?_ _

_ _“I think we should see if Archie has some time for you today,” Belle told him, her gentle voice holding a no-nonsense tone that refused to allow him a choice. “And I think it’s time you agree to stay for the whole hour.”_ _

_ _“Probably,” he admitted, his voice the breath of a whisper to hide the shame he still felt in his actions. Idly he wondered if any of the neighbors _had_ happened to be glancing out of their windows just in time to see him streaking between the kitchen and the basement. He must have left the door open, he realized and was grateful for it._ _

_ _“Hey,” Belle called gently as she reached up to caress his face. “It was just a dream, all right? I’m here.” When he nodded, she rewarded him with one of her beautiful smiles, unwrapped the sheet from around him and pulled it tightly over her own body, binding the two of them together. “You get dressed, I’ll make breakfast, and when you’re done at Doctor Hopper’s I’ll reward you for time served.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on names:
> 
> While Harold means ruler of the army, Derek means ruler of the people


	6. Chapter 6

Gold looked up when the bell above his shop door chimed and quickly, but casually, closed the book in front of him. He gave the blonde visitor his usual winning smile as he set down his pen and shifted his work to the side of the counter, where he was sure it would go unnoticed.

“You wanted to see me?” Emma Swan stepped up without even glancing at the book or the loose sheet of paper that was misaligned within it.

“I did, indeed.” He lifted a finger to indicate that he needed a moment and ducked into the back room. Gold had spent the morning scouring the shop for a small, palm-sized item that he thought would be suitable for a boy of indeterminate age. It needed to be a combination of toy and collectible trinket, something that he could claim belonged to a lad who was soon beginning his path to maturity. It had been a hard search, but in the end he’d found a small bird figurine that looked like it might belong to a model set, the pewter form painted blue, with a bright orange beak, and he set it aside in the back for the sheriff’s arrival. Now he plucked the little thing up and carried it through to the shop’s counter. “Did you happen to visit any jewelry booths during the festival the other day?”

Before he could continue with an explanation, Emma glanced at the back room and sniffed. “I don’t get it. Are you saying you’ve got something of mine or trying to accuse me of something?”

“Well, if you’d let me finish, you could just save us both some time,” Gold almost hissed in answer.

Her mouth quirked up slightly. “Sorry.”

Gold nodded once in acceptance of the apology, then pretended to study the bird in his hand. “There was a family at the festival by the name of Leone, two brothers named Roy and Harold. I thought I saw a boy with them and later at the fair, he dropped this.”

“You think he stole it?” Emma, now interested, gestured at the figure. Gold handed it over and gave her what time she needed to do whatever she thought she was doing. He knew she wouldn’t find anything. 

“Come now, Miss Swan, do you honestly believe that I have such a low opinion of everyone I have dealings with? I assumed it simply fell out of the boy’s pocket when he was bending over the inventory.” Gold pretended to think about what he hadn’t actually seen, then shook his head at himself. “I was hoping you could do a little digging for me. You see, I need the boy’s name so I can return this.”

Emma crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at him. “If they had a booth at the fair, you must know what shop they own in town. Why don’t you just go to their store and ask the owners?”

“I may be best known as the unforgiving landlord to most of the people in this town, but I assure you that I _do_ have a heart, especially when it comes to children.” He let a pause slip between them and his mouth twitched with sadness at the thought of Gideon, alone in Seattle, sleeping away through whatever the night was bringing him.

“Right.” The woman’s voice caught in her throat and she cleared it. “Sorry.”

Gold waved her apology away. “I thought that if you could track down the boy’s name for me, I might be able to talk to him myself.” Emma opened her mouth to protest and he held up a hand to stop it before it could begin. “If he _did_ steal the item from another stall I’d prefer confronting him myself. Older to younger store keepers, as it were. Walking into a shop and asking for someone by name implies you have business with them, whereas striding in and demanding to speak to a nameless child could imply all sorts of… undesirable intentions. I wouldn’t want to tarnish the boy’s good name on a misunderstanding and if he has no association with the Leones, then they might decide that I am making assumptions on their credibility as well. No, Miss Swan, this is something I prefer to handle directly. As sheriff, wouldn’t you want to be sure the boy in question was one of theirs if our situations were reversed?”

The excuse was shaky at best, but he hoped it would be just enough of a push to get what he needed. An entire morning had been spent working out the details of this little charade and the current version was the only one that he had been able to come up with which felt it would produce any form of success. It used Gideon, perhaps, playing on his loss, but Gold didn’t mind since he wasn’t truly lost to him, and as long as the sheriff didn’t go poking her nose into any of the holes in his story, they should both come out of it without trouble.

“Yeah,” Emma said at last. “I’ll see what I can do. But no stalking the kid, you got that? I don’t want my good deed to end up as part of a harassment suit.”

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Miss Swan.”

She gave him one of those sideways nods. “I’ll call you when I come up with something. You gonna be here? Shouldn’t take too long.”

“I’m closing early for an appointment,” Gold said in as neutral a tone as he could manage. “Four o’clock. But I’ll be here until then.”

Emma’s eyes saddened as she worked out where it was he must be going. She glanced out the window to the office down the street, then met his gaze again. “Right. Before four.”

Gold nodded and let her leave. Once the door was firmly shut, he pulled the loose paper from the discarded book and glanced over the notes he had written there.

_Circle of Life Jewelry  
Roy Leone - Owner  
Son?  
Harold Leone - Shipping?  
Pristine shop, friendly staff_

_Recycled Living Toys  
Derek King - Deceased  
Son - Witness? Missing.  
Walter King - Owner, Shipping?  
Run down factory, staff afraid?_

_Same silent driver. Contents?  
Family friends??_

Not for the first time since people in his life started overlapping, Gold wished that he had the knowledge and power that Weaver possessed. It was certainly much handier to be a detective than a pawnshop owner, but he supposed there were also advantages to the casual conversations shared by strangers. Some time before the end of his day he intended to make a stop at the jewelers and gently nudge either Roy or Harold into accepting parental custody of the boy and, if he was lucky, hand over the names of the family friends Walter King had mentioned to Weaver. He assumed the names wouldn’t match up but the effort would be worth the reward if he could learn anything at all.

The bell chimed again and Weaver looked up to see Alfred Barker struggling with yet another box of mysterious parts. “Hey, Mister G!” The greeting was chipper and exaggerated and not at all what Gold had hoped to be hearing today.

“Mister Barker,” he said slowly, in a tone he hoped would convey slight annoyance. “Is there something I can do for you, I’m rather busy.”

“Oh,” the man said as his face fell and his gaze dropped to the box’s contents. “Well, I… I was really excited about this one, see, but…”

Gold felt a pull of guilt somewhere within his chest and sighed, waving the man over to the counter. “I’m sure I could make some time for you. Let’s see what you have today and then I’ll decide, all right?”

Alfred beamed. “That’d be swell, Mister G!”

Though the man was short and on the round side, with wide, confused eyes and a clown like gaze that looked nothing at all like Gideon, there was something about helping Alfred that made him feel he was closer to his son in some way. It was probably the man’s childish innocence, he realized, and wondered what Hopper would have to say about his suddenly seeming to have adopted Barker after the accident. Hopper would probably tell him he was trying to replace Gideon in some way and Gold pushed the idea from his mind. 

He might not want to think about which life was the dream and which was reality, but it was getting much harder to accept the fact that he lived two individual lives. Of course, that mentality alone spoke to the severity of whatever mental illness he must be going through. The logic of living two lives in two cities at two opposite ends of a rather large country was mind boggling >i>without the interlacing characters and it was a miracle the morning’s incident hadn’t happened before. Now, thinking back on the utter desperation that had him wanting to hurt himself to prove his own awareness, Gold had to admit, he just might need help to sort it all out.

* *

“When your wife called it seemed urgent.” Hopper smiled as he lifted a hand to indicate the center of his office. “So I was a little surprised when you moved the appointment to this afternoon. Is everything okay?”

Gold took his place at the end of the sofa farthest from Hopper’s chair. “I really don’t know that it is,” he admitted. “In the past few days things have started to get… jumbled in my mind.”

Hopper tried to hide his mad dash to shut the door and be seated in time to scribble down Gold’s words. Pitying him, Gold pretended not to notice the impropriety, choosing to study the angles of the prominently displayed box of tissues on the center table while giving the man the time he needed to recover his composure. 

“So the dreams you’ve been having. They’re changing?” The man looked up, eyes filled with curiosity.

“No. I still see my wife here and my son in our other home,” Gold said, indicating to one side of his body as Storybrooke and the other as Seattle. “But I’m starting to confuse the two. Last night I told Gideon that he once lived here with us-”

“And he didn’t remember,” Hopper finished for him.

Gold nodded. 

“So these dreams about Gideon include the same problems that you have here.” the other man said, tilting his head, a move that mirrored one his dog would make. 

Gold’s eyes widened and he looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“Well, uh…” Hopper flipped through a few pages of his notes, nodded at himself in a way that sent him bouncing in place, then looked back at his patient. “You had mentioned in several of our meetings that you can’t remember your life here before the accident. I’m just wondering if you have incorporated that into your dream as well, since Gideon doesn’t seem to remember living here.”

“He’s not a dream,” Gold huffed.

“All right, but for the sake of the ease of conversation, can we use that term?” Hopper gave a warm smile.

Since he knew it wouldn’t solve anything to argue, Gold remained silent and found himself wondering if the man sitting across from him was somehow part animal, then scratched that idea from his mind. Hopper was too stiff to be a dog, though his head tilting and boisterous energy did seem almost canine. The man’s stiff, unusual posture and chirpy voice was more like an insect, jittery and buzzing around where it didn’t belong.

By the power of suggestion, the doctor’s next words seemed to come out in something like a low hum of rapidly beating wings. “How did Gideon forgetting his home here make you feel?”

“Confused.” Gold pushed the word out with great difficulty. He thought about Belle waiting beyond the hallway and how dutifully she would be keeping track of time. He felt a twitch low in his body as he recalled their agreement that a full hour in the office would be rewarded with a night’s worth of enjoyment. He soon found himself having to resettle in his seat to find comfort. She needed him as much as he needed her. If he couldn’t do this for himself, he would do it so that she would be guaranteed an evening of bliss. He would be a terrible husband to do anything that would force her to be denied their evening’s planned activities and she deserved better than what she came home to that morning. “I was certain we must have moved to Seattle _from_ here,” he continued at last.

Hopper made some notes and spoke without looking up from his paper. “And the phone call today from Belle… She said something about your not knowing where she was. Are other things bleeding through from the dreams? People? Events?”

“I see things in both places,” Gold admitted without thinking. “The people are the same, but they have different names.”

“Such as?” The other man dutifully began to scribble in his notebook.

Gold rested his ankle on the opposite knee and noticed a bit of leaf on the cuff of his trousers, which he deftly flicked away before resting his hand over the spot, all in an effort to try and still the nervous twitch of his foot. He was a man of strength. Perhaps it was a quieter strength than Weaver possessed, but still, admitting faults of any kind did not come without a fight. “How is any of that important?”

“Well…” Hopper looked up from his paper. He said that word a lot, Gold realized, it was going to get grating. “If we can break down what the changes are, maybe we can try to work out what it is that your mind is trying to tell you. We often hide bits of important information in our dreams, things that are too hard to remember at the time because they might be too painful to deal with in the moment we first experience them. If we can look at those overlaps in your dreams, we might be able to work some things out.”

This actually made some sense to Gold and he gave a slow nod as he thought over what to say and what to keep to himself. He could talk of the people, he decided, without giving away any details of the case Weaver was investigating. There wasn’t anything suspicious going on in Storybrooke after all, so there couldn’t be any harm in it. He decided to stick to the story he’d told the sheriff, just in case the woman had spoken to anyone in order to get the information he requested.

“Roy and Harold Leone own a jewelry store here in town. I met them at the festival. They had a boy with them, but I didn’t catch his name.” He omitted the fact that he asked the sheriff to get it for him.

“A couple?” Doctor Hopper was once again focused on his pen as it danced over his notebook.

“Brothers,” Gold corrected. “I assumed the boy was one of their sons, but we weren’t introduced. He dropped something while they were packing and I haven’t been able to find him to return it.”

Gold waited for the other man to question his ability to simply return it to the shop, as Miss Swan had, but Hopper was far too caught up in his little mind mystery to notice the detail. “And what part do the Leones play in your dream?”

He blew out a breath of frustration, raised his hand and clapped it back down on his ankle. “They make toys. I don’t see much of a connection there.”

Hopper looked up with a smile and a shrug. “Well, some would say jewelry is fun or brings them joy. I think toys certainly do that.”

“That’s a bit of a stretch, Hopper,” Gold huffed angrily, then used the memory of Belle’s blue eyes to cool his temper. They were down in the basement, his naked body marked with chill bumps and his face wet with tears. He couldn’t lose his tempter now. She needed him to stay for the entire hour, she deserved answers as much as anyone.

“What about their names?” Hopper went back to writing as Gold answered. “You said people were the same, but names were different.”

“Derek and Walter King,” Gold told him offhandedly. “I know Derek has a son, but I don’t know his name, he’s not with the family.”

Hopper looked up at him with wide eyes. “Interesting…”

Gold waited a moment in hopes of being given more information, but finally found he had to ask. “Something you’d like to share with the class, Doctor Hopper?”

The other man shook himself out of whatever stupor he was in and gave a bashful smile. “Don’t you see? Here in Storybrooke you have lost a son and in Seattle, where you have your son with you, you are placing that loss on someone else. Presumably someone you are helping, since you’re a detective…” He thought for a moment. “I’d guess a missing person?”

“The uncle says he knows where he is,” Gold told him, forcing his mouth to relax from the sneer he felt growing on it. “I doubt the boy is actually missing.”

“But he is without his family, just as you are without yours.” Gold said nothing, which forced Hopper to look down at his notes. “What about the names of the stores? Is there anything there?”

“The Leones run a jewelry store here,” Gold said. “Circle of Life Jewelry, they make special occasion pieces and birthstone items.” He decided to leave off the items of memorial on sale, thinking that would only set Hopper on another wild tangent. “And the Kings run Recycled Living Toys in Hyperion Heights.”

Before Gold could explain what the toy company was like, Hopper jumped in with his own observations. “So there is a theme of being alive here as well,” he said as his pen made two slashes on the paper, presumably underlining “life” and “living.” “I really do believe we are working some things out here, Mister Gold. How have things been with Belle?”

Gold scowled at the idea of bringing his wife into all of it, even though she was the one who had set up the appointment. He felt a need to protect her though he knew Hopper couldn’t hurt a fly. “Fine,” he barked.

“Have the two of you spoken about the accident at all? I seem to recall your grieving process involved intense lovemaking.” Gold’s glare sent the other man’s hands flying to the sky in surrender. “Not that there is anything _wrong_ with intimacy, but both of you _did_ seem to use it as a bandage. A barrier, if you will between your feelings and the incident. Have you told her about the dreams?”

“No. Gideon is the only one who knows. I don’t have the heart to tell his mother. It would crush her.”

Hopper tipped his head to the side again. “How did you tell Gideon?”

“I didn’t,” Gold harumphed. “Not exactly. He… noticed I had to wash the sheets every morning.” He could feel heat rise in his face and decided to try and read the titles on the bookshelf while he waited for Hopper to work that explanation out.

The pause was as long as Gold expected it to be and was finally broken by a hesitant clearing of the throat. “So… He, um… asked about it?”

“He teased me about it mercilessly.” Gold recrossed his legs and pretended to examine a scuff on his shoe that wasn’t actually there.

Even without looking at the man it was possible to see Hopper’s eyes grow wide with sudden understanding. “Ah. You mean you were having nightly… Right. Well, that would make sense if you and Belle were… Um.. Spending time together-”

“Oh, don’t get sensitive now, Doctor. _You’re_ the one who brought up my intimate relationship with my wife.” Gold flashed a smile at the man, hoping it would press the discomfort further. He was gratified to see that it did.

Hopper tried to swallow down the flush that was rising in his cheeks, but did a miserable job of it and his dutiful study of the day’s notes didn’t cover his embarrassment any better. “So the need to wash the sheets every night… that is actually a natural reaction.”

“You don’t need to tell me, Gideon already has,” Gold grumbled, though he smiled as he said it. He always did when he thought back to their conversations, especially when the topics involved were ones he wished Belle could have experienced as well, if in a slightly different fashion than the men handled them when they were alone. “Gideon and I aren’t afraid to discuss things like that. We never were.”

“Then telling him about your time here with Belle must have been a natural step.” Hopper ignored his notes now and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“If you’re trying to figure out how our conversation went, it was something like this…” Gold sat up straighter and put on a slightly childish air. “’Papa, I can do the laundry for you. You get ready for work.’ ‘No, Gideon, I’ll do it.’ ‘It’s okay that you dream about mother, you know. You loved each other and it’s okay that I see evidence of your-”

“That’s a good sort of relationship to have.” Hopper burst in, unable to take any more, which made Gold grin wickedly to himself. “It makes more sense now why you are having such a hard time differentiating between the two realities. Each one clearly seems to be as real to your mind… and body… as the other.”

Gold waved a hand in the air. “Which is only what I’ve been trying to tell you all along.”

Hopper flipped back to an earlier page in his notes and pointed at a line that had been written in a different color ink to the one he was using now. Notes from Belle’s phone call, Gold realized. “So, the incident this morning stemmed from the difficulties your mind is having in identifying what is reality from what is the reality that your mind has created for itself.” He looked up with a sympathetic expression. “It is truly a difficult thing to face.”

“I was afraid I’d lost them both,” Gold admitted sadly, then straightened himself with a shake of his head. “But I’m sure that was only because I had just opened my eyes. Sometimes moving from Hyperion Heights back to Storybrooke or going back to Gideon can be disorienting.”

“But you must know that one place or the other is not reality,” Hopper continued. “It makes the brain fight against itself, causing incidents where you confuse the truths about either location. And perhaps because your mind believes both places are a part of reality, it is merging certain things between the two as a way of helping you to cope. Take the boy. You see him here in a situation that could happen anywhere, then he gets added to your dream as a child separated from his parents.”

“I believe we’ve been here before,” Gold told Hopper in a tone that he hoped would steer him clear of the notion of going through it again.

Hopper glanced at the clock and nodded. “And our time is almost at an end.” He put his pen down on his paper and looked up with an expression of pride. “I have to say, Mister Gold, I am quite surprised to have seen you stay for our full hour. Can I ask you to do something for me between now and our next meeting?”

Gold stood and tried not to look as if he were bolting for the door. “You _can_,” he answered. “Whether or not I will actually do it is debatable.”

“I’d like you to keep track of the overlaps between your time in Seattle and your time here. I think we might be able to find something in those links that could help us move forward from this point on.”

This, at least, would be a simple task and Gold readily accepted it with a brisk nod. “Now, if our time is truly at an end, I have a date with my wife.”

Hopper’s face flushed again and he all but shooed Gold from the room. _Serves the nosy little cricket right,_ Gold thought as he made his way to Belle.

* * 

“Levan Leone?” Belle wrinkled her nose as she stepped out of Hopper’s building, tucked her arm over Rumple’s, and leaned tenderly into him. He reveled in the feel of her body close to his and fought the images that came to mind as he contemplated what her plans might be to reward him for his good behavior.

“Gideon Gold?” He shot back playfully, using the distraction as a way to calm himself.

She made a face at him. “Not _quite_ the same thing,” she insisted. 

“Either way,” Gold said in an attempt to get them back to their original conversation. “I couldn’t ask for him at the shop because that overly curious Barker showed up today. So I have to stop in at the jeweler’s but it’ll only take a moment.”

Belle nodded, accepting his request, then tipped her head with curiosity. “What did he bring in this time?” 

“A music box,” sighed Gold. “And it wouldn’t run, so of course he took the thing apart to try and figure out what was jamming the system.” He closed his eyes for a step or two, then reopened them. “I understand the man has a different mind than most, but honestly I wish he would take my instructions to heart and bring things to me _before_ he makes a mess of them.”

“You say that every time,” Belle reminded him. “And every time you help him, no matter what mess he’s made.” Gold was forced to admit this was true, but his acceptance of it was signaled by a silence that filled the gap between Belle’s suggestion and the jewelry store. Once they arrived, she looked up at him again. “You want me to come in with you?”

Gold shook his head. “I don’t imagine it will take very long. I only mean to return something the boy dropped.” The story of Levan’s involvement in the festival seemed to be getting more elaborate as the day dragged on and now it had sucked in his wife as well. He hated lying to her, it made a part of him feel dark and rotten inside, but what else was he to do? She had insisted on walking home together and he still had to meet with the Leones before he fell asleep that night.

“Then I’ll wait.” Belle stepped just to the side of the door and released his arm.

“I won’t be long,” he promised as he kissed her cheek, wishing the gesture could undo the damage done by dragging her along into his madness. He pushed open the door and greeted Roy with a smile.

“Mister Gold!” The man beamed at him cheerfully as he stepped around the counter for a handshake. “What can we do for you today?”

Gold glanced around, but saw no evidence of Harold or the young boy. “I was looking for Levan,” he said smoothly, hoping the tone would imply that he actually knew who he was asking for. 

“Brian and Bradly came to get him right after school,” Roy told him as if he should know who the men were. “The shop isn’t the best place for a boy his age. Glass cases and boyish energy aren’t a good combination.”

“Makes sense he would go with friends,” Gold agreed. “More freedom, less worry.”

“Family friends. The Foresters are more like uncles to him than his own uncle. Harold means well, but he has his own life, of course.” Roy’s eyes began to narrow as the jeweler seemed to suddenly realize who he was talking with. “Was there something specific you needed, Mister Gold?”

Gold pulled the small bird from his pocket and held it up so that the father could see. “I thought I saw your son drop this the other day at the festival. I was hoping to return it.”

Roy looked carefully at the item on offer, but shook his head. “Levan doesn’t have anything like that,” he said at last. “I’m afraid you’ve made a trip for nothing.”

“Oh, it was no bother,” Gold told him as he quickly tucked the toy away again. The man couldn’t know how helpful he had actually been. Not only had he given over the names of the “family friends,” but his failure to reject Levan as a son told him everything that Weaver would need in the morning. “I happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by on our way home.” He nodded through the window at Belle with a gesture that indicated he was on his way.

The shop owner waved as he glanced outside and she returned the gesture. “Is your wife enjoying her gift?”

“Very much so,” Gold replied as he made his way to the exit. “And I must say again, the craftsmanship is simply remarkable. We really must return for a matching piece when we have the time.”

Roy took the hint and nodded a farewell. “Do come back whenever you’re ready,” he said. “We will be here.”

“I certainly hope so.” Gold smiled as he left the store and lifted his arm for Belle to reclaim. There was no reason to believe that the murder of Derek King would spill over into Storybrooke, but the threat seemed to be looming over the place like a flock of circling buzzards. If Weaver could use this information to help solve the King case, it might help the Leones avoid some heartbreak as well.

* *

The reward for having spent exactly one hour at Doctor Hopper’s office was a slow and deliciously painful affair that involved a four course meal and the scattering of clothing throughout the Golds’ home. Belle ended the celebration rather unceremoniously by falling asleep in their bed, tucked into his side, her head on his shoulder. 

Gold sighed with contentment as he held her and thought of Gideon’s return home the night before. Considering how uncomfortable the boy was when he found his father on the sofa in his underwear, Gold was sure Gideon would be absolutely mortified at the general disarray of the house as it was now. He imagined their son walking in to find a suit jacket on the floor, Belle’s heels beside it, and then being forced to follow the trail of shirt, pants, dress and underwear through the house on the way to his bedroom. He desperately wanted the family reunited, of course, but for once he was grateful that he didn’t have to worry about where Belle’s underwear had fallen when he’d flung them over his shoulder during their stop on stairs.

Belle stirred beside him and let out a hum as if asking a question.

“Did I wake you?” He whispered softly, hoping he hadn’t.

“You chuckled,” she murmured. “What were you thinking?” Her head tipped up and her eyes fluttered open, gazing at him with lazy affection.

Gold ran his fingers over the part of her back he could reach and she squirmed with delight. “That if Gideon were here, we’d be in quite a lot of trouble,” he said once she was still again.

“He’s old enough to understand his parents wanting to have a good evening,” Belle assured him as she wriggled closer, draping a leg over his hip and causing his body to stir again.

He rolled over, guiding Belle along with him and let out a throaty chuckle. “Would you be able to walk into your home and see your mother’s dress in the middle of the floor and your father’s shirt hanging off the kitchen island?”

Belle pretended to think, tipping her head and biting her lip. “Not to mention my bra hanging from the chandelier over the table, your pants at the bottom of the stairs and your underwear somewhere in the upstairs hall?”

Gold laughed. “Did you even see where _yours_ landed?”

“On the statue by the front door, I think,” Belle said before wrapping her legs around him. “And I’m not ashamed in the slightest.”

“Neither am I,” Gold told her before kissing her soundly. His heart was breaking over the way they had taken their son’s absence and turned it into yet another frantic session of lovemaking, yet he couldn’t deny his need for Belle or the desperation he felt to make her cry out with pleasure. Somewhere in the back of his mind he held the thought that perhaps Hopper _should_ be working with them to find other ways of controlling their grief, but in this moment, with Belle in his arms, he found a relief from his sorrows that was pure perfection.

* * Weaver * * 

A familiar sticky sensation greeted Weaver as his eyes opened to a new day, spilling tears down his cheeks and onto the pillow. He rolled over with a sigh and slapped off the alarm, then chuckled as he saw the pile of clean sheets left by Gideon the night before. 

“You okay? I thought-” Gideon’s voice in the doorway made Weaver leap out of his skin and scramble desperately to cover the evidence of the night’s visitation with Belle. “Papa…”

“I’m fine.” Weaver pushed the answer out as a single, gravely word, then glowered as his son chuckled at his discomfort. When the boy turned away, he decided to return the favor and called him back. “Gideon?”

His head popped back in. “Yeah?”

“What would you have thought if you came home one night and your mother’s and my clothes were strewn all over the house?”

Gideon paled with shock, but eventually burst into laughter. “I’d think you were still the stud she fell in love with,” he joked.

“Underwear hanging from the lamp?” Weaver shouted as the boy walked away.

“Still a stud,” he called back over his shoulder, making Weaver laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on names:
> 
> Brian means noble and Bradly means broad. If you know who they are, the Forester part is fairly obvious.  
Levan means lion.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a long one, but we get to watch Weaver solve the crime that we have all known the truth of from the beginning.

By the time Gideon realized that the interrogation of his father would not give him any new insights into the man’s mysterious clothing debacle, both men were running late. Weaver agreed to swing by the school so that his son wouldn’t miss too much of his first class and used all of his emergency drivers training to reach the campus with minutes to spare.

“Papa, I’m _not_ doing that again,” Gideon grinned, releasing his death grip on the door to let himself out.

“Then stop trying to figure out how your mother’s underwear ended up dangling from a statue in the hallway,” Weaver barked back, though he had a huge grin on his face. He glanced forward, gesturing at the campus. “Aren’t kids supposed to be _disgusted_ by that sort of thing?”

Gideon leaned down through the open car door and grinned. “Disgusted by the idea of my parents going at it like rabbits all over the house? Or the fact that my father dreams about that kind of thing _all_ night long?”

Weaver lurched forward to swat him, but Gideon ducked away and shut the door, mouthing a “love you” before he walked off toward one of the buildings, where Tilly waited for him on the steps. The detective watched as the girl jumped up and waved, then hurried up to Gideon and began walking with him through campus. He was glad the two had ended up with most of the same classes together in their first year, they were like brother and sister to each other and Gideon seemed to be better for having someone like Tilly in his life.

He put the car in gear and began to drive away, but instead caught sight of Tilly pulling what looked like a small package out from under her jacket. He slammed on the brakes and watched with concern as the girl slipped the item easily to Gideon, who tucked it into his stack of textbooks with a fluid movement, all while their backs were turned to the car. Weaver frowned, eyes narrowed at the scene, wondering what had just gone on in front of his eyes. Had they known he was still there? Whatever passed between them wasn’t much bigger than a small textbook, but shone like it had been tightly wrapped in either cellophane or clear tape.

Pulling away once the two were completely out of sight, Weaver vowed to get to the bottom of the exchange before going to bed that night.

* *

The delay at home and then again at the college meant that Rogers was already in the office by the time Weaver got in. The younger detective sat at his desk, busily at work flipping through files and jotting down notes on a small pad. Weaver didn’t care how busy the man was or what he was doing. They had a time limit on this case and they needed their answers before the final minutes passed. As he entered the room, he tossed a thumb over his shoulder and ordered, “Get over to Records and put in a request for the communications history of that toy shop _and_ every member of the King family.”

“But.. I was…” Rogers sputtered, indicating the work in front of him.

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t jump up and run off.” Weaver snarled, nodding at the office door. “It’ll take ten minutes and we’ve only got an hour. Go.”

To his credit, though Rogers looked as if he was going to say something, he simply stood and stormed out. Weaver waited until the man was out of sight before leaning over his abandoned work and smiling as he saw the notes taken from the old King reports, scribbled out in barely legible shorthand. There wasn’t anything incredibly useful, but it was the effort that counted. “Never hurts to suck up to your superiors,” Weaver whispered as he moved to his own chair and sat.

For the briefest of moments his hands hovered near the computer, twitching in a fight against his better judgment over the urge to run background and known associates checks on Tilly. He hated his suspicions, but the more he thought on their recent behavior, the more worry bubbled from his chest. The two of them had been out at the movies a lot recently and the incident the other night with glass held a much deeper meaning now than it had at the time. Were they in trouble? Was someone harassing them over supply issues, or worse, drug debts? The package would have been an odd shape for a drug exchange, but they _were_ far away. Still, if it were something that nefarious, why would Gideon basically brandish it around by holding it in the open with the textbooks he carried in his arm?

Gideon was a boy that followed the rules and though Tilly was, at times, a little flighty and did have some mental instabilities now and again, none of her actions indicated that she would be either using or dealing, but what did Weaver know? Being away from parents changed kids. So did traumatic events.

Just as he was about to type in Tilly’s name, Rogers arrived with a pile of papers. “Printed it out on the spot,” he said, dropping the stack of files to the desk with a thud, thankfully delaying any investigation into Gideon’s friend. “What are we looking for?”

“Any communications between either of the Kings or the company and a family with a woodland name.” Weaver picked up a file from the stack and set it in front of him, then ran the tip of a pen over the lines of text as he spoke.

Rogers grabbed another file and did the same. “Mind explaining what you mean by ‘woodland name?’”

“Just give me any name you find that has to do with trees,” Weaver snapped. He flipped to the second page and looked down the list, then moved to the third. His time with Hopper in Storybrooke had given him an idea. Though the man clearly had no idea what was going on between Hyperion Heights and his life in Maine, Weaver thought the doctor _was_ actually on to something. Following through with Hopper’s similar company name theory, Weaver hoped the trend would be the same when it came to the names and titles of people around him. Until they had a lead on the witness, it was the best shot they had.

When the silence between them made Weaver realize Rogers wasn’t turning any pages, he looked over at his partner. “What?” The word snapped out of him like a rubber band drawn too tight.

“You _seriously_ want me to look at every name and just call out whatever tickles my fancy… as long as it has to do with _trees_?”

“Yeah,” Weaver told him. “That’s what I want you to do.”

Rogers gestured at the stack. “Well maybe I want to know how you decided this is the angle we should take. I don’t remember anything about trees being mentioned yesterday.”

“They weren’t. It’s a hunch.” Weaver scanned another line of names, then discarded it.

“A hunch? First you throw us headlong into this old case because a piece of evidence reminds you of a man who’s uninvolved, but made something similar. Now, because the company uses the word “recycled” in their name, you’ve got me looking through piles of phone records to find someone whose name has to do with _trees_?” Rogers tossed a hand in the air and let it slap down on his leg. “Somehow I don’t think the captain, or anyone, for that matter, is going to be accepting this as legitimate evidence, mate.”

“Well then, _mate_, we’ll just keep this little tidbit of information to ourselves,” Weaver hissed as he looked up from the phone records to glare at his partner. “What else are we gonna do while we wait for someone to come forward?”

“I hate to be the one to tell you, but we haven’t heard from that delivery driver and at this point, I don’t know that we will.” Thankfully, though he was chatting away, Rogers had taken up a pencil from the desk and was dutifully pointing the tip of it at every name on his list.

Weaver shrugged and went back to his own work. “Give him time. Turning on your boss isn’t something that comes easily to everyone.”

Rogers let out a huff at the remark and Weaver wasn’t sure if it was meant as acceptance or disapproval, not that it really mattered. He was still convinced the man had been tossed into his life to act as a spy for the captain, though the tests he had put Rogers through the previous day, and the one he had just given the man, seemed to imply otherwise. His partner had plenty of opportunity to report to the captain while waiting for the records they now held and had the entire evening to report back on the unusual investigative procedures used in the warehouse. That included calling the suspect by a name unrelated to the case. The captain’s silence over it all implied that either Rogers had stayed silent about their activities, or their superior was biding his time, holding back the venomous strike until it would do the most damage.

“Here!” Rogers dropped his pencil as he shouted, then raised his hand as if he were a school boy in class. He picked up the implement again and stabbed it so hard at the paper that the tip broke off, forcing the mark to be made into a thick, gray oval that trapped the name in question. 

Weaver frowned. “Well unless you expect me to glean the information through a mind reading spell-”

“Linwood.” Rogers interrupted as he lifted the paper and flicked it to Weaver’s desk. It drifted short, but was close enough for the detective to snatch it up and spin it around to be read properly. “And there are eight more calls on this page alone,” his partner continued, circling each.

The second paper was tossed his way and Weaver nodded as he studied it. “All made from the home of Mister Derek King before the date of the incident at the warehouse.”

Rogers stood up and walked around to the side of Weaver’s desk. “Not the same people though.” He pointed out one set of names, then pointed out another selection. “These were all made to a Grady Linwood, these were to Huxley Linwood.”

“The other friends were either brothers or a couple,” Weaver whispered to himself, then snatched up the papers and stood from his desk.

“What other friends?” 

Weaver shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m taking this to the captain.” He spun and pointed at the stack of still unchecked lists. “Keep at it, bring me every record we’ve got of communication with the Linwoods. I’d be willing to bet only one call was made _after_ Derek’s death, from either the company’s phone or Walter’s.”

At first it looked like Rogers would protest, but as Weaver explained, he found the man nodding diligently, his expression becoming serious. Before any further complaints could be made, Weaver strode out of the office and headed for the captain’s desk, wondering how he was going to pull off such a shaky find. There was _nothing_ in any of the paperwork that indicated where King’s son had been sent. It was a stretch to assume that calls made to a couple of seemingly random people, which then stopped at around the time the child supposedly left his uncle’s care, meant that the boy was actually sent there. Weaver hoped he might be able to weasel his way through the worst of the mess, but he also knew it was going to be an uphill battle.

“Detective.” The captain smiled and looked up from his work as Weaver approached. “If you’ve come to give me information on the King case, you’ve had your chance on that and your twenty four hours are up.”

Weaver shook the papers in his hand. “Not yet they aren’t,” he snapped. “I told you yesterday that we’ve got a possible witness. You _have_ to give us time to follow this lead.”

“Wasn’t there a witness at the scene? The man’s kid?” The captain sat back in his chair and gestured in the direction of the precinct’s main room. “We’ve had that information for years. The boy didn’t see anything.”

“He _said_ he didn’t see anything,” Weaver told him. “But Rogers and I talked to someone at the warehouse yesterday who implied the boy saw more than what he claimed. We’ve been trying to track him down.”

The other man nodded. It was a gesture not of understanding, but of placation and it made Weaver’s blood boil. “All right. So show me what you’ve got and I’ll consider moving forward.”

Weaver dropped the papers onto the man’s desk and stabbed at one of the marked names with a single finger. The motion held so much force that the chain around his wrist slapped the hard surface with a metallic clatter. “Linwood,” he said. “Yesterday Walter King told us the boy had been sent to family friends.”

“And you know for certain that he is with these Linwoods?” The captain examined the records, then looked up. “He mentioned them by name? Because somehow the boy’s records vanished soon after the interview. He hasn’t been traceable.”

The detective pulled himself to his full height and took in a breath. _Here it comes,_ he thought to himself.

“If you’ve run off on a whim here and just _happened_ to find a name that looks like it might fit the time frame you’re looking for, that’s guesswork. It isn’t really evidence at all and I can’t sign off on anything that comes of it. Speculation isn’t fact, Weaver.”

Weaver snarled and placed his palms on the captain’s desk, leaning forward to stare icicles into the man’s eyes. “We _know_ the boy was sent to live with family friends. We know _when_ King was murdered-”

“We actually _don’t_ know that he was murdered,” the captain piped in as he pushed the phone records back toward Weaver. “All the evidence points to an accident.”

“Believe me,” Weaver said as he took the papers and stood again. “This wasn’t an accident.”

“Well to believe you I need _proof_.” The captain turned back to his work as he spoke, effectively dismissing Weaver. “You don’t have proof. At best you can file a report on the suspicious rehoming of the kid, but _this_ case is closed.”

“The man we spoke to yesterday-” Weaver began, but was cut short when the captain threw down his pen and glared up at him.

“The mute? I read the paperwork you filed, Weaver. A quick chat with a delivery driver who can only nod his head yes or no doesn’t qualify as evidence.”

In that moment Weaver heard footsteps behind him and turned on his heel to see Rogers barreling into the room, brandishing his cell phone as he walked. “Maybe this will,” Rogers huffed out quickly before handing the phone to his partner. “Text just came in to the number we gave the driver.”

Weaver stared down at the screen, the dark text against the white background causing a smile to come up to his face. He read the words aloud for the benefit of the captain before turning the phone to face him. “Armel sent to Grady and Huck Linwood. Saw everything.” He wished he could scrub the damned thing right into the seated man’s smug expression.

Rogers glanced at Weaver as if questioning his own right to explain, then spoke anyway, without permission. “Walter King told us he didn’t have time for the boy once he took over the company, so he had some family friends take care of the lad, but _we_ suspect he wanted to get rid of a witness.”

Though he didn’t like to have his chat with the captain continue to be interrupted, Weaver appreciated the forward tone and gave a sharp nod to his partner. There was something to be said about the man, a determination and truthfulness to him that Weaver was now being forced to appreciate.

After a long moment, the captain finally nodded. “Contact the family. Talk to the boy.” 

Weaver turned quickly and nodded for Rogers to head out of the door, wanting to hurry before any other orders could be given, or worse, be taken away. His rush got them only as far as the entry itself, before his name was barked out at them.

“Weaver.”

He turned and made sure the captain would notice his long intake of breath and the twitch of impatience in his fingers.

“You want this case closed, you do it by the book.” The captain emphasized the last three words as if they stood alone.

* *

Getting the required paperwork rushed through the system took most of the morning, but by lunch a phone call had been made to the Linwoods, who agreed to let Armel talk to the detectives in person, once the boy was out of school. More authorization then had to be given for Rogers and Weaver to make the two hour drive through Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest to Leavenworth, where the Linwoods lived and by the time the two men were actually in the car and on their way, the work day was almost finished.

Weaver insisted Rogers do the driving, and used his status as passenger to review everything they had on file so far. They discussed hypotheses and interrogation options as the car sped forward, tossing ideas back and forth while the thick forest passed on either side. Almost an hour into their drive Weaver realized that he hadn’t held one bitter thought for the man he was working with. There was a clumsiness to being new, which Rogers hadn’t avoided in the slightest, but the man did have a good heart and a sharper mind than anyone, including Weaver, had given him credit for. He wasn’t just a guy moving up the ladder with something to prove, there was a true passion for the work they did that Weaver could understand and appreciate. He might even be truly coming to accept him as a partner. 

An hour into their drive, Weaver’s phone rang and he picked it up to see Gideon’s name on the screen.

“Didn’t think we’d get service out here,” Rogers chuckled. “Lucky man.”

“Well, it’s my son,” Weaver said as he answered. “We’ll see how lucky it turns out to be.” He accepted the call and all but threw the phone to his ear. “Gideon? We’ve not got time. You all right?”

“Fine, Papa. I wanted to ask if Tilly and I could go to the movies tonight,” Gideon spoke quickly, his voice raised as if that would help it push through the bad reception.

“Sure,” Weaver called out. “But we’ve got to talk later about whatever happened this morning.”

The parts of Gideon’s voice that came through conveyed surprise and confusion.

“Look son, I’ve got to go. I’ll call-” Weaver didn’t get the chance to say goodbye before the service disconnected. He stared down at the device in his hand as if glaring at the thing would make it suddenly choose to function normally again. “Damn.”

Rogers shot a quick glance over at him before putting his eyes back on the road. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Weaver huffed. He didn’t want to offer more, but suddenly found the opportunity to talk to a captive colleague slightly appealing. Before he knew what he was doing, the story began to spill from him. “At least I _think_ it’s fine, but maybe I’m just an old cop that’s worked so hard that he brings it all home just in time to fuck with what’s good.”

“Want to be any more vague?” Rogers chuckled and shot him another look, then took on a serious expression when he realized he’d misjudged the situation. “Or maybe tell me what’s going on? I mean, I know I don’t have any right to go busting down the door to your personal time, but-”

“I think he’s in trouble,” Weaver said suddenly, surprising himself as much as he did Rogers. He took a long breath and scrubbed a hand over his face to try and clear his mind, and when that didn’t work, tossed his head back with such force that it practically bounced against the headrest. “I dropped him off at school today and before I drove off I caught one of his friends slipping a package out of her coat and into his hands.” He imitated the gesture with his own jacket, pulling the cell phone out and pretending to pass it on.

“You see what it was?”

Weaver shook his head. “Wrapped up tight, with cellophane or packers tape.”

This raised Rogers’ eyebrows. “You get a good look at it? You don’t think-”

“No, I don’t ‘think!’” Weaver barked the words back loud enough that they seemed to bounce around the car. It wasn’t fair to snap at the man, he knew. Rogers was only trying to help and it _did_ feel good to have someone he could talk to, someone who might be able to look at the situation with different eyes but from the same perspective and put the pieces together in a way that made sense. He turned to face the forest, letting the scenery calm him before he muttered an apology. “Sorry. I _do_ appreciate your wanting to help me,” he admitted finally.

“All right, so what evidence do you have?” Rogers waited for an answer, but when one didn’t come, he elaborated. “Come on, Weaver. You wouldn’t be sitting here assuming your own son was involved in some sort of nefarious dealings if you didn’t have evidence beyond a taped up package.”

Weaver rolled his eyes. “Last night, when I came home, they acted like they were in a panic. I come in, swing the door shut and the next thing I know one of my own dinner glasses is flying at my head.”

A huff of amusement escaped Rogers before he could stop it. “Well, how hard did you ‘swing’ it shut?”

Weaver glared over at his partner, who drove on in silence, eyes twinkling with mischief. The man knew him too well. “All right, so I slammed the thing,” he grunted, thrusting a finger at Rogers as he continued. “But that’s still no reason to go on the attack.”

“So you’re thinking they’ve got someone after them?” It wasn’t a question.

“_Am_ I bringing the work home?” Weaver looked over at his partner, his heart sinking with worry. “What kind of father sees an innocent exchange between two friends and turns around to accuse his own son of dealing drugs?”

“First off, a concerned one,” Rogers insisted sternly. “Secondly, you _just_ said it was an innocent exchange, which leads _this_ detective to believe you have your doubts.”

Weaver felt the corners of his mouth turn up in a genuine smile. “You’re right,” he was forced to admit. “It didn’t have the right look. Didn’t stop me from wanting to run the girl’s background this morning, though.”

Rogers actually laughed. “So that’s what I interrupted?” 

“What does _that_ mean, exactly?” Weaver shifted in his seat so that he was almost facing Rogers and let his brow knit visibly.

The other man wasn’t shaken. “When I came back with the phone records it honestly looked like you were having a psychic altercation with your computer.”

“’Psychic altercation,’” Weaver repeated sarcastically as he returned to facing forward. He fought a smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth, but didn’t quite win the battle.

“You were glaring at the screen, mate.” Rogers gestured ahead of them and made an attempt to mimic what he saw earlier that morning. “Like you were willing it to explode.”

The imitation made Weaver chuckle and relax fully into his seat again. They had less than an hour to go and he wanted his mind in the right place for their conversation with Armel and the Linwoods. Everything they had was resting on whatever account they could coax out of the family at the other end of this long, winding road.

* *

Grady Linwood was a slender man with an excitable personality, the type you would expect to answer the door in an apron left behind by his great grandmother and let out a high pitched yelp of surprise while calling over his shoulder to the household that company had arrived, then apologize for not being well enough prepared while serving tea and cookies on a silver tray. His partner was the opposite in almost every way. A thickly built man with a quiet demeanor and a broad, toothy grin, he moved slowly, spoke gently, and seemed the type who would look at a tree that had fallen on his house and declare simply that it was time to move while expressing an eagerness to explore new surroundings.

It was impossible to work out how the two had found each other.

Weaver and Rogers had been made comfortable in the couple’s living room while Armel was called down from his room. In the time it took the boy to finish whatever he had been working on, the four adults chatted briefly about the incident at the factory, a situation that the Linwoods had apparently not been made aware of. On the boy’s arrival, Grady leapt to his feet and rushed to the teen, who was already taller than his guardian. “Why didn’t you tell us what happened with your father?” He pressed the boy’s head close, smoothed his hair, and rattled on about his worries, making Rogers’ eyebrow raise slightly in amusement.

“Come on, Grady,” Huck said in a voice that was almost too cheerful for the situation being discussed. “You wouldn’t want to relive something that horrible either.”

“I wouldn’t need to relive it,” Grady shot back, eyes narrowing. “I would have told the police everything from the start.”

“I’ll believe that,” Rogers muttered to Weaver as he set down his tea cup and pulled his pad and pen from his pocket. 

Weaver held in his chuckle and gestured first at an empty chair, then at himself and Rogers. “Armel, I’m Detective Weaver and this is Detective Rogers. We were hoping to talk to you about what happened to your father, if that’s okay.”

Grady released the boy at last and escorted him to the offered seat, adjusting the cushions. “You want anything Armel? We made tea. Milk? Hot cocoa?”

“I’m fine,” the boy smiled up at the man, a look of adoration and amusement on his face.

“Leave the kid alone and let him talk with the detectives,” Huck insisted, catching Grady’s hand and patting it gently. Grady opened his mouth to protest, but Huck stood and smiled at the detectives. “We’ll be right back.”

“Quite the family you’ve inherited,” Rogers said as the men left for the kitchen.

Armel watched after the pair’s retreating backs and shook his head. “You learn to love ‘em.” He shrugged then and turned to the detectives. “What do you need to know about my dad?” It was an odd question, given that they had basically covered that topic, and Armel’s eyes flicked slightly to the ground as he asked it. Weaver immediately suspected a diversion.

“We can wait ‘til they get back,” Weaver told him, forcing the words out from necessity alone. They had to do this by the book and Armel’s legal guardians needed to be in the room.

“His uncle sent him away, you know,” Grady chimed in as he returned with an array of glasses each filled with a choice of either milk, juice or water. He pointed at them and gently commanded the boy to drink something before sitting on the other sofa. Huck joined him and patted his leg gently in a gesture that was either meant to reassure him or prevent him from interrupting. Weaver couldn’t work out which, but decided either was as valid a reason as the other, especially as the man kept on talking. “Right after that accident, just packed him up and shipped him here. Didn’t even have him to the funeral.”

This caught Weaver’s attention as sharply as Armel’s unease had. “Whyever not?” He frowned at the boy, trying to convey sadness at the news. He couldn’t imagine anyone telling Gideon he couldn’t attend his mother’s funeral, or that Gideon would allow himself to be denied. “Did he force you away?”

“Just didn’t tell us when it was,” Armel said as he shrugged his shoulders and stared down into the glass of milk he had taken but not consumed.

“Do you think he’s trying to hide something from you?” Rogers asked gently.

Armel took in a long breath, eyes fixated on the white liquid in the glass. Weaver could almost hear his mind at work, churning out whatever memories and thoughts that haunted the boy’s past. He knew that look. He’d seen it on Gideon every time he felt guilty.

“Accidents happen,” Weaver offered, leaning forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped in front of him. He hoped the gesture would prove him trustworthy, show his willingness to confide his own secrets, if need be. “We’re not here to point any fingers, we just want to answer a question that your father can’t give us the answer to. Do you think you can do that for us?”

The boy swallowed, then nodded, then put down the glass, his hands trembling.

Weaver watched and felt worry creep inside of him. Had they been wrong all this time?

“I did it,” the boy finally confessed, his voice and body trembling. “I was running to the stairs and slipped. He tried to save me. I-” 

Grady tried to jump up, but Huck held him back with a gentle squeeze to the arm.

“Go on,” Rogers encouraged. “We need to know exactly what happened.”

Armel scrubbed at his face, sniffing loudly. “Dad pushed me back over the railing and I ran away. My uncle tried to get to him before he lost his grip, but I heard him scream and when I turned around he was falling.” He swallowed and looked up at Weaver, meeting his eyes with a pleading expression. “It was an accident, I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“We know,” Weaver told him gently. “We just have to be sure. You understand?”

The boy nodded.

“So, you didn’t actually see what happened?” Rogers looked up from the notebook as he asked his question and Weaver tried to shoot him an angry look, but his partner shook his head. “You see,” he explained as he pointed to the notes. “You say it’s your fault, but if you weren’t near your father, you can’t be to blame.”

“Uncle Walter said that when I ran I hit the rail, it shook my dad loose,” Armel told him, staring down at his hands again. “He said if I hadn’t run away, the rail would have held and-”

“No,” Weaver interrupted. The pieces were all fitting together now and he sat back with such force that everyone in the room turned to stare at him. “Your uncle _wants_ you to believe you did it.”

“I knocked the rail. I felt it.” Armel shook his head, adamant.

Weaver leaned forward again and pointed a finger at the boy. Everything made sense now, right down to the boy’s mysterious disappearance from every legal record. “I’ll bet your uncle told you to come here and keep your trap shut because he was protecting you. Right? Because _he_ didn’t want _you_ sent to prison for killing your own father. You didn’t do anything that resulted in your father’s death. I’ve walked along that railing, it’s as sturdy as the day it was installed. The outside of the factory was a dump, but we didn’t have any trouble with the second floor.”

Rogers looked at him, then at the Linwoods, then at Armel. “Can you close your eyes and picture it?” He made the suggestion softly. “Sometimes things we don’t think we see actually end up in our memory. Close your eyes and think about the day you were by the railing.” The boy did this and nodded after a moment, as if indicating he could see it. “You’re hanging on and your father catches you…”

“He ran up the stairs,” Armel said softly. “Leaned over to put his hand under me so I could pull myself up.”

“And your Uncle?” Rogers waited patiently for an answer, but didn’t get one. “Where was he?”

“Standing by my hands. I see his shoes,” Armel said.

Weaver nodded at the notebook in Rogers’ hand. “Right there and didn’t help him.” He mouthed the words to prevent being an interruption to the exercise.

Scribbling down what his partner told him to, Rogers nodded and continued. “So your father pushes you up, then what?”

“My uncle told me to hurry to safety because the railing would break, so I scrambled under the bottom rail and I kicked something.”

“Was it hard or soft?” Weaver added his own question. 

“I…” Armel struggled with the sensation, face scrunching in concentration.

“If you kicked the rail, it wouldn’t have any give to it,” Weaver told him. “If your foot hit your father there would have been a lot of give to it. You would have kicked him back, away from you.” He leaned back as if he were being kicked in the chest or the face, even though Armel couldn’t see it.

The boy shook his head, bottom lip tucked in his teeth. “It… It was like both. It was thin like a rail, and hard, but it moved a little.”

“Like someone’s leg,” Rogers declared.

Weaver shot him a stern look. They couldn’t be putting words in the boy’s mouth now. They were too close to getting the answers they needed.

“Maybe… I don’t know.” Armel whimpered a little as he struggled with the decision.

On the other sofa, Grady’s eyes darted from the detectives to the boy and back again, hands wringing in his lap. Huck gently patted his partner’s leg in short, soothing motions, thankfully managing to keep the man quiet. Weaver wasn’t interested in either of them blurting out suggestions that could send the interview sideways. He held up a finger at them as Grady started to open his mouth and the other man snapped his jaw shut again with a barely audible click.

“How about this,” Weaver suggested. “You’re running away, to someplace safe, but you’re about to turn around. When you turn around, I want you to look at just your uncle’s hands. Think you can do that for me?”

Armel nodded and licked his lips, there was a flinch to his face and his body twitched nervously.

“Just his hands,” Weaver reminded him.

“They’re.. I can’t see.” Armel started to open his eyes.

“Stay in the warehouse, Armel,” Rogers nudged. “Try and see his hands.”

“He’s bent over I… My father’s trying to grab Uncle Walter’s shoulders.. Pull himself up… I can’t see-” The boy let out a sharp gasp. “Uncle Walter… He… He just lifted them up in the air!” His own hands mimicked the gesture, rising as if flinging something away. Eyes flying open, he cried out. “My dad fell!”

Grady ran over to Armel and all but fell into the boy’s lap, clasping the teen’s head and thrusting it against his own chest. “There, there… It’s all right. You’re here with us now.” He glared over at Weaver. “How _dare_ you make him relive that.”

“I’m very sorry. Truly I am, but I’m afraid we have to ask just two more questions,” Weaver sighed.

“Haven’t you asked enough?” Grady twisted in his position, making some remarkable shapes with his body. The man was a regular contortionist. His eyes shot ice across the room. “The boy’s emotionally distraught. Look how much you’ve upset him.”

“What about Armel?” This question came from Huck, whose sad eyes drifted from one face to the other, then stopped on Grady. “He’s held this secret a long time. Maybe he wants to let it go.”

Pulling free of Grady’s grasp, Armel scrubbed a sleeve across his face and nodded. “I want to help my dad. I want to know I didn’t do it.”

Weaver nodded. “All right. But first, I want you to close your eyes and tell me what happens after your father falls.”

“I’m standing in the corner. I’m afraid,” Armel said as soon as his eyes closed. Weaver imagined that this was the easiest moment to recall, the moment of losing a loved one. There wasn’t a day that went by where a flash of his tumbling car didn’t blink into his mind. The sensation of spinning, the sound of shattered glass, the screams of Belle and Gideon as the vehicle flipped and rolled down the hill, into the trees, were all elements that would be with him until his final minute on this earth. Thankfully the boy continued before Weaver’s mind had a chance to get lost in the past. “He’s coming closer…”

“Can you see his shirt? Was he wearing anything yellow or green? Something that catches the light?” Weaver sat at the edge of the sofa, wishing he could lure the answer out by physical proximity alone.

Armel shook his head. “No. There’s a tear in his shirt, just a… a maroon patch of cloth hanging loose. I can see black under it but nothing else.”

Rogers wrote a single word at the bottom of the paper. “PIN?” 

Weaver looked at it and nodded, then gestured for the chance to write. Under the three letters he wrote, “Shirt in report, black. Fabric in evidence, maroon” before returning the pad and turning back to Armel. “Now, last question and this will all be over. What is the first thing he tells you?” He waited anxiously for the answer, eying Roger’s pen as it hovered near the paper, ready to record everything.

“He said ‘What have you done?’ I… I told him I didn’t mean for it to happen and he told me no one means for accidents to happen. He said, ‘Your father is dead’ and told me I would have to leave so he could protect me.”

Rogers scribbled down the words, then looked up for clarification. “So your _uncle_ could protect you?”

Armel nodded, eyes still closed.

Weaver sat back in his place again, letting a smug expression settle on his face. “So he never asked you to dial 911.” There was no question in his tone because there was no question in his mind. The first reaction of anyone witnessing an accident was almost always one of concern. A man seeing his brother fall to the ground _should_ have dashed after him, checked for a pulse, called out for help. 

“No.” Armel looked up, eyes wide. “He just… told me to go.”

Rogers suddenly froze, pen standing in place as if it were stuck in the middle of the word it had been recording and couldn’t travel beyond some invisible barrier. He looked over to Armel with his head tipped to one side. “When you left the building, did you walk past anyone?”

“Yeah,” Armel said with a shrug. “The delivery guy.”

* *

The hours following the visit with the Linwoods somehow managed to both fly by and crawl at a snail’s pace so that by the time Weaver reached home he felt as if he had lived about a week’s worth of days in only a few minutes. The case was now officially solved and Walter King was on a short trip to a long life behind bars for the murder of his brother Derek. Most of the pieces would all come into place in the coming days, but Weaver had done his part and couldn’t wait to rub his success into the smug expressions of everyone on the force who spent the past two days treating him like a lunatic. He couldn’t help agreeing with Rogers in the end; the title of local hero was going to feel a lot better pinned to him than the words crazy widower did.

All he could think of on the drive home was falling into bed, but when he entered and found the apartment empty, bed was the last place that Weaver wanted to be. The place was dark and silent, every light switched off and at first he assumed that Gideon was in bed, but when he stuck his head in his son’s room and found it empty, his mind began to whirl with all kinds of horrible scenarios that even a scalding shower could not wash away. Remembering his outburst in Storybrooke, he forced himself into a state of calm, muttering constantly about how Gideon had called and was still at the movies. Tilly was with him and everything would be just fine.

It was the thought of Tilly that kept him up until Gideon’s return, sitting in a pitch black living room, in a chair turned to face the door. His eyes fixated on the knob, unfocused and unblinking, only darting away when it finally turned. He checked the time. It was just after two in the morning and there wasn’t a theater in town that had a show on this late. He’d had time to investigate that..

Before the door had even finished swinging open, Weaver spoke into the darkness. “Must have been a long film.”

Gideon’s entire body jerked in surprise, hand flying to his chest as he fell backwards against the door frame. “Papa!” He gasped and bent over, free hand stretching to the wall in a desperate search for support. “I thought you were in bed.”

“It seems I’m not,” he hissed back from his chair. “Funny how expecting one’s son to be home at a decent hour changes one’s bedtime.” He stood and made his way to the door, managing to get his eyes level with Gideon’s by the sheer luck of the younger man being still bent over from shock. “Kitchen. Now.”

Thankfully, Gideon knew better than to argue. He closed the door, locked it for the night and followed his father in a walk of shame that led him directly to a single chair at the kitchen table. When Weaver flicked the light switch, Gideon raised his eyebrows at the arrangement, table and chair filled with a pool of light like some interrogation scene out of an old time crime drama. “Seriously?”

“Sit.” Weaver leaned against the counter and crossed his arms, staring at the single chair.

Gideon slunk down into place. To his credit, he said nothing, simply gazed up at his father and waited for what was to come.

“I thought I was being a pretty good father to you, Gideon,” he said after a moment’s pause. “I’ve supported you, I’ve always been here for you, and I’ve been honest with you. Yet it seems to me that all of a sudden you’ve decided to sneak around behind my back, thinking you’re going to get away with something that I wouldn’t be able work out.”

“Papa-”

Weaver held up a hand for silence, a gesture which was obeyed without question. “You seem to need a reminder of who your Papa is, so here we are. Now, you can either answer every question put to you in a way that is going to prove your honesty to me or I’m going straight to the office tomorrow and running background and known associates checks on your friend Tilly.”

Gideon’s mouth dropped open. “Tilly? Papa, I don’t-”

“Question one.” Weaver’s words cut through the air, making Gideon’s mouth snap closed again. “What was in the package she slipped you this morning?”

The younger man adjusted his position in the chair and shrugged. “It wasn’t a package. It was just one of the books she borrowed from me,” he said, eyes flicking down to study his hands as they fidgeted on the table. 

Weaver didn’t believe the answer, but planned to come back to it. “Question two. Who have you been dealing with that made you feel as if you have to defend yourself in your own home?”

Gideon blinked again, confusion washing over his face. “No one, Papa. I feel perfectly safe here with you.”

“And yet I came home the other day to find myself ducking under flying glass.”

“Tilly just got spooked, is all. She gets that way sometimes. Her mind isn’t always as clear as ours, you know that, Papa…” Gideon made a pleading gesture. “It just wasn’t one of her good days.”

Weaver nodded at one of the empty chairs that now sat against the wall. “So her bad day led to you raising that chair against what _you_ thought was a home invader?”

Gideon refused to break his gaze. “No,” he insisted. “I just wanted to protect her. And in her defense, it _did_ sound like someone breaking down the door.”

“Question three,” Weaver said the moment Gideon had finished, making his son roll his eyes. They both knew the quick cutoff was as good as an admission of acceptance, but cloaked in frustration and a refusal to finish what he started. Weaver’s eyes narrowed as he pulled out his final query. “Where were you tonight?”

A sigh escaped Gideon as he dropped his head back to look up at the ceiling.

“Gideon, it’s answers or a real investigation,” Weaver barked at him, his voice cracking with the pain of having to resort to threats when talking to his own son. “I thought you could trust me with _anything_. Instead I find you staying out at all hours of the night and accepting drug sized packages from your friends at school-”

“Wait, _drugs_?” Gideon stood up and rounded the table to face his father. His eyes held an intensity that wasn’t anger, but that Weaver couldn’t quite call anything else. “Is _that_ what you think this is about?” 

Weaver flung a hand from his side to indicate the apartment. “What do you expect me to think? In the last few days you’ve been out at night, handled at least one suspicious package in the morning, and been terrorized by your father’s return from work!”

Hands reached out to clasp Weaver’s shoulders, the grip gentle, but strong. “Papa…” Gideon’s mouth turned up in a tender smile and his eyes glistened with unshed tears. “It’s not like that. It would _never_ be like that.”

Father and son stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, seeking truth and comfort. Weaver felt his own eyes fill with moisture and his lip quiver over the combined guilt and relief that washed over him. “Oh son,” he rasped. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have put you through that... But I worry, son. I can’t see all those things without thinking you’re in some kind of trouble. It’s my job to _protect_ you.”

“And you _are_ protecting me, Papa,” Gideon said tenderly as he squeezed Weaver’s shoulders, eyes still locked together.__

_ _Weaver felt himself dissolve and crumpled into his son’s chest, weeping with relief. He allowed himself to be held, clung to even, and flung his arms around his boy, clutching at whatever clothing he could to hold him close. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again. “I should never have doubted you.”_ _

_ _They stood like this for an immeasurable amount of time, each refusing to let the other go, both clinging as if their lives depended on the physical contact. It was Gideon who moved first, gently nudging this father away until he was at arms length again. The younger man bent to look into his father’s face and gave him a gentle smile. “You were right, though, Papa. I _have_ been doing something that you didn’t know about, but it isn’t what you think.” He paused to let his father catch up with the news before saying, “It’s easiest if I show you. May I?”_ _

_ _Lips twitching in a tender smile, Weaver nodded. “Of course. You can show me anything.”_ _

_ _Gideon led his father from the house to the car and got him settled in the passenger side though Weaver protested he wasn’t old enough to have someone settle him in a car like a man on his way to the nursing home. They drove in silence through the city’s empty streets, lights flashing a warm glow on their faces, allowing him to catch only small glimpses of expression or mood. The young man was nervous, hands wringing the steering wheel, knuckles white with tension, but Weaver didn’t call attention to what he noticed. What he had done tonight was bad enough as it was._ _

_ _“It’s a fuse.” Gideon’s words shattered the silence like a stone on glass._ _

_ _Weaver tried to work out what the sudden proclamation had to do with why they were in the car or where they were going. His eyes darted over the console as if some warning light held the answer, but none were lit. “It’s what?”_ _

_ _“The box,” Gideon said, eyes fixated on the road. “The one Tilly gave me. It’s a fuse for a solar power system. I had it mailed to her at the school.”_ _

_ _“The school?” Weaver’s mind whirled with confusion, worry beginning to build again. Why didn’t his son trust him enough to send the package to his own home? “Gideon, if you thought I was going to poke around in your mail...”_ _

_ _His son shook his head. “It was her idea, really. I just ordered the parts when she needed them and helped her fix everything up, of course.”_ _

_ _“What idea, Gideon?” None of this was helping assure Weaver of anything. “What needed fixing?”_ _

_ _Slowly the car drifted to the curb and Gideon killed the engine. “You’ll see,” he said as he got out. “Come on.”_ _

_ _Wary of their location near the warehouse district, Weaver exited the car and shut the door, glancing around to pick out any unsavory characters. This wasn’t the first place he’d hoped his son would come to, and it certainly wasn’t looking like he would be much assured by the outcome of their little field trip. Gideon, on the other hand, seemed completely at home in the area as he walked up to the storage crate they had parked beside and pulled something from his pocket. _ _

_ _After a single flick of his wrist, a motion obviously well practiced, Gideon had the crate opened and gestured for his father to step inside._ _

_ _Weaver entered with caution, eyes struggling to make out anything in the dark. All of the shapes seemed wrong, the walls were too smooth, too close together, and the telling echo of movement in a space that should reverberate with every step was utterly missing. “Gideon, I don’t-” He began to protest, but when he heard a click behind him and lights blinked on, he cut himself short, taking in everything at once._ _

_ _The crate’s interior wasn’t anything like a crate because it no longer was a crate. While the outside seemed not to have changed, the inside was covered in rustic wood paneling on two of the four sides and along the floor. Small windows had been installed on one of the longer walls and there was an actual wood burning stove set centrally to the small space, dividing living area from kitchen, standing on a small square of stone floor set neatly into the wood. Beyond the kitchen was a walled area, the door shut, and a ladder leading up to a small crawlspace above it._ _

_ _It was nothing like Weaver had ever seen and he found himself reaching out to caress the wooden planks, stepping forward to run a hand over the iron stove and along the kitchen counter. There was a gap beyond the surface, presumably where a refrigerator would go, and here and there some capped wiring dangled from areas where outlets would eventually be installed. _ _

_ _“Gideon,” Weaver breathed. “What is this place?” He turned to see his son hovering in the corner, all but wringing his hands with worry._ _

_ _“My home,” Gideon breathed, face pinching with a hint of worry. “Tilly and I bought it before school and we’ve been working on it together. But after the accident, I didn’t want to leave you.”_ _

_ _Weaver took in the sight under the new context, his eyes widening. “The two of you did all this?”_ _

_ _The younger man nodded. “We want to put a door in over here,” he said, indicating the longer side of the crate which wasn’t yet paneled._ _

_ _“This is what you’ve been doing when you told me you were going to the movies.”_ _

_ _Gideon nodded._ _

_ _“Why didn’t you just tell me, son?” Weaver turned again, exploring the space. There wasn’t any furniture, but it was easy to see where things were intended to go. He opened the door at the back of the room and discovered it led to a small bath, complete with every modern convenience, then ducked back outside and stepped up the ladder to find the crawlspace already furnished with a mattress and a single, thin shelf built into the wall._ _

_ _“I didn’t want to leave you,” Gideon answered as his father looked around. “Mother was gone and I couldn’t leave you alone in the apartment. Not so soon after it happened. Besides, it isn’t ready yet. I was trying to wait and tell you when we found a place to put it.”_ _

_ _Weaver turned a frown at him. “How are you keeping it here?”_ _

_ _Gideon shrugged. “Tilly knows the man that owns this spot. He sold us the crate, told us if we paid a small rent for the land it was sitting on, we could take our time fixing it up.” He must have seen the concern on his father’s face because he threw his hands up to stop any protests. “He’s a nice man, Papa. Runs a legitimate shipping business. He was just going to get rid of it, but when Tilly told him we were thinking about doing this…”_ _

_ _“It’s a fine idea for the two of you,” Weaver told him. “As long as you get it moved to somewhere more appropriate.” He stepped closer and clapped his son on the arm, then pointed a finger at him playfully. “And stop working on it so late at night.”_ _

_ _The boy smiled sheepishly. “We lost track of time tonight,” he said, guilt hanging over him. “That’s not going to happen again.”_ _

_ _Weaver grinned. “You’re right it isn’t.” He looked around the space again, marveling at everything that his son was capable of. His heart clenched at the sudden thought that this opportunity had been snatched away from Gideon in Storybrooke. Would he have found an outlet like this there if he’d lived to be given the chance? What else had death stolen from him? _ _

_ _A hand reached out to clasp his and Weaver realized that he was shaking, again on the verge of dissolving to tears. “Your mother would be so proud of what you’ve done here,” he rasped, squeezing Gideon’s hand in his own. “So very proud.”_ _

_ _Gideon took a deep breath as he visibly calmed his own sadness, then let the corners of his mouth twitch up in a smile. “Can I show you around before we go home?”_ _

_ _Tears spilled from Weaver’s eyes as he nodded. “Yes. I want to see everything.”_ _

_ _Gideon explained every step of their work from the construction process to the regulations they had to follow and showed him where each piece of furniture was going to go. He demonstrated a fold away kitchen table and all of the tiny storage places that hadn’t yet been installed. Every possibility had been worked out by the pair, including sleeping arrangements. Tilly was taking the loft over the bathroom and Gideon was getting a folding sofa or futon to go by the fireplace. That hadn’t been the original plan, but when they realized Gideon didn’t fit as well in the small sleeping area, the sleeping spaces got swapped over._ _

_ _By the time they got home it was not long until dawn and there was hardly any reason to attempt sleeping, but they both tried. After saying goodnight in the hallway, Gideon simply flopped into his bed and was asleep before Weaver went through his evening routine. The detective changed for bed and stood in front of the mirror, studying his reflection as he brushed his teeth and realized how the image seemed so much older than the man he remembered belonging to it. The long night certainly had something to do with the change, but he also knew that his own age meant that Gideon was growing up, the converted cargo crate was evidence of that. It was also evidence pointing to the fact that Weaver couldn’t keep his boy close forever. He would, eventually, have to let him out on his own._ _

_ _Weary and feeling more alone than ever, he went to the bedroom and settled into bed for the few hours that he would be granted with Belle. He sighed as he turned to his side, facing her empty space, and pulled the cold pillow to his chest, breathing it in as if her scent still lingered there. “He’s not our growing boy any more, Belle,” he whispered into the softness that wasn’t his wife. “He’s a growing man. And I don’t know what I will do without him.”_ _

_ _He closed his eyes and imagined Belle’s smile, her scent, her touch on his arm, and before he had completed a full breath, was asleep and on his way to see her._ _

_ _* * Gold * *_ _

_ _A touch on Gold’s arm woke him and he breathed in the scent of his Storybrooke home. It was a woodier place with an antique smell to it that couldn’t really be explained in words. There was the combination of old books, working fireplaces, and polished metal, but it was more than that, and for some reason it bothered Gold that he couldn’t place it. He seemed worried by a lot of things this morning. There was something he needed to remember about the jewelers, and a woman he needed to try and find. The fog of the previous night lingered more than it had on other days and he had to shake his head to clear out the worst of it._ _

_ _“Gideon’s home,” he muttered to himself, remembering where he had been and deciding that the long night with Gideon had a lot to do with his difficulties this morning._ _

_ _“No,” Belle whispered from his side, her answer telling him that she misunderstood. “He’s not coming home. You were dreaming.”_ _

_ _He could work with that, even accept it right now.She needed to know what their son had accomplished and he was desperate to tell her. Gold scrubbed a hand over his face and shook his head. “So real…”_ _

_ _There was a clink of china at the side of the bed, making him realize that one of the smells of the house that he hadn’t placed was actually a cup of tea invading his dreams. When the delicate sound stopped, he felt the bed shift beside him, sheets rustling as Belle climbed at his back. She draped one arm over him, tucked one arm under his neck and pulled herself so close that every possible inch of her was touching him. She was dressed, but considering the tea he wasn’t surprised. He was the only one who seemed to not be bothered by tearing around the house in the nude._ _

_ _“Want to tell me about it?” She whispered into the back of his neck, her breath hot and comforting, then planted a gentle kiss beside his ear and gave his chest another squeeze as she waited for his answer, giving him all the time in the world._ _

_ _“He built a house,” Gold said at last, still in awe of the feat. “Out of a shipping container.”_ _

_ _A surprised sound came from behind him. “A shipping container? Like.. From a ship?”_ _

_ _Gold nodded. “It was beautiful, Belle. They had aged wood paneling and stone on the floor where the wood stove was-”_ _

_ _“A wood stove. A real wood stove?”_ _

_ _“It was like our log cabin,” he told her as if that answered the question._ _

_ _“But in the shape of a metal crate,” Belle reminded him, still amazed. There was a pause before she realized his use of the word “they.” “He had someone else?”_ _

_ _“He did,” Gold told her, eyes watering at the thought of how happy Gideon had been with Tilly, how good they had been for each other, especially since the accident. “A girl. Tilly.”_ _

_ _This made Belle huff playfully. “Well we know it’s a dream. Gideon moving in with a girl.”_ _

_ _Gold laughed. “No, she’s… I mean, she was his best friend.” On a hunch and a hope, he described her. “Blonde, bright eyes, quirky sense of humor. She’s a little off some days, but she’s a good kid.” _ _

_ _“She sounds like she was lovely,” Belle told him, the image clearly not bringing anyone to mind. _ _

_ _The thought occurred to him that he should search for people Gideon’s age who met the description. Of course the problem in that plan was that in Storybrooke most students left for college, searching for the beginnings of their new lives in schools far from their tiny little corner of Maine. And if he was lucky enough to actually find a Tilly who fit the description of the one he knew, the chances were that Tilly wouldn’t even be her name._ _

_ _Another kiss came to his neck and he sighed, rolling his head gently into the sensations that called him back to his pawnbroker’s reality. He would see Gideon in the morning, but first he had work to do here._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grady means noble  
Huck is short for Huxley, which means clearing


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long one, I'm afraid.

Gold spent the first part of his morning in the shop, just to keep up appearances. He sorted through inventory, managed the books, and did a few odd repair jobs in between quick phone book searches for the Leones and Foresters. The brothers had separate addresses, which wasn’t too surprising, and the Foresters lived near the edge of town. Once he had all of three addresses in hand, he pocketed the slip of paper they were written on, flipped the shop’s sign to read “Closed” and headed over to the the library for lunch with Belle.

She greeted him with a bright smile and a kiss before pulling out the picnic basket from behind the circulation desk. “No one’s in,” She told him happily. “We can have the place to ourselves.”

The suggestion in her tone made his heart leap in his chest, but today he couldn’t allow himself to be drawn in by temptation. If the Kings had suffered the loss of their patriarch, he could only assume that the Leones were quickly approaching a similar situation. Gold might not be a detective, but the obligation to help still weighted heavily on him. How could any man suspect an upcoming murder and do nothing to stop it? How could any father knowingly leave another man’s child fatherless?

“Actually,” Gold said, turning to nod at the door. “I thought we’d eat in the park today. Do you have time?” This was the first part of his plan, though it was the weakest part. It was quite the stretch to believe that he could run into any child at the park on a school day, even given the late hour he had alloted for their meal. To expect their lunch to end as the boy was beginning his care with the Foresters was a shot in the dark, to be sure, but it wasn’t nearly as out of reach as his hope that both the Linwoods and the Foresters would prefer to spend their time with Levan outdoors.

Belle’s eyes sparkled with delight. “Oh, I’d love to!” She opened her mouth to say something else, but her eyes darkened with sadness. Gold could imagine what thought had crossed her mind. It was the one thing that worried him about his afternoon plans. They hadn’t had a true picnic since the accident.

“You’re sure?” He lifted a hand to her cheek, caressing the soft flesh with the back of his fingers as he brushed hair from Belle’s face.

Her mouth made a thin smile, one that told him she was pushing herself forward through the grief that still lingered. Finally, she nodded and grabbed the basket, then tucked her arm in his. “Yes.” It was an answer of certainty. Something sharp and definite that reassured him more than any other answer could.

They walked through town until they reached the park and Belle picked a bench facing the pond. It wasn’t Gold’s first choice of seating, but with a little effort and some creative body positioning he was able to keep an eye on half of the area. He kept an ear out as well, listening for the now familiar voices of the broadly built Huck, who was Bradly in Storybrooke, and the ever emotional Grady, whose name was now Brian. 

The Golds ate and chatted, enjoying the weather and their ability to completely ignore the time. Several times they stumbled into periods of silence, moments where a thought of Gideon emerged and neither of them knew quite what to do with it. Hopper would have been proud of the the two of them, Gold realized. Perhaps they weren’t specifically speaking of their son’s fate or their feelings regarding his absence in their lives, but when the moments of remembrance crept in, they didn’t chase them away. 

When the meal was finally finished, they realized it had taken over an hour’s worth of the day and Belle began to feel rushed. “I should get back,” she told her husband quickly as she started to stuff empty containers into the basket. “People are going to wonder where I’ve gone off to.”

He chuckled and caught her hand in his, then slid a touch up her arm and around her back, completely interrupting her work. “Both the library and the shop are closed for lunch,” Gold rasped against her ear. “People are going to _assume_ where we are and I don’t think they _want_ to know where we got off to.”

“We’re only having a picnic!” She gave him a playful shove that eventually separated them.

“Trust me. They don’t think that,” he answered as he reached for the basket’s woven handle. “But if you’re worried. I’ll finish here and you head back.”

Belle looked up at him, lip tucked in her teeth as she contemplated her options. “You’re sure?”

“I don’t mind.” Gold kissed her cheek. “You go and call me when you’re ready. I’ll come meet you.”

With a quick thanks, Belle made her way out of the park, leaving Gold to finish the clean up. He did the work slowly, unpacking and repacking the basket several times in an effort to force the job to take more time than it normally would have. Once the last of their things was put away, he sighed and lifted the basket, certain that his efforts had been wasted.

“All right, Levan,” a voice called out as Gold began to walk away. “Your father expected you home half an hour ago.”

“Oh, let him have one more run,” a deeper voice answered, all cheer and contentment. “It’s a shortcut.”

“It’s a shortcut until he’s on the other side of the park,” the first man answered back. “Then he’ll want a snack from the store across the street, and a peek into the toy shop…”

Younger than his Seattle counterpart, Levan still clung to the boyish side of his youth. Eager and unaware of his situational surroundings, he turned his head as he ran, providing Gold with the perfect opportunity to create a much needed accident. Putting himself in Levan’s path at just the right moment was a simple matter of changing direction and speed.

“I’ll be quick!” The boy shouted the words as he slammed into Gold’s side, letting out an oof of surprise before tumbling to the ground.

“I am _so_ sorry,” Gold told him as he set down the basket to squat near the boy. “I should have been looking where I was going. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Levan told him with a shrug. “My fault too. Shouldn’t have been running backwards like that.” He beamed a huge smile up at Gold and in that moment the age gap between Levan and Armel hit home in a way that was almost a tangible pain. A twist of worry thrust itself into Gold’s chest, fogging his mind with the realization that the horrific event he was anticipating might still be years to come.

Brian and Bradly soon rushed into view, snapping Gold into action. He reached out a hand to help Levan to his feet, using the action to turn his back on the approaching adults and block the boy from their view. “I think I know your father. He’s a jeweler, right?”

“Yeah,” Levan said absently as he brushed himself off.

“I have one of the bracelets your father made, he does wonderful work.”

The boy looked up at him with a shrug. “Thanks. I’m supposed to take over when I get bigger. My dad’s always talking about it.”

Gold frowned. “You sound like you don’t want to.”

“I do!” Levan’s face suddenly lit up at the idea. “I don’t think I could make stuff, but I want to be in charge of things, like my Dad is in charge of Uncle Harold and the others. He gets to do all kinds of neat stuff.”

Behind him, Gold could hear the voices of the Foresters getting louder. Brian was now on one of his nervous rants, babbling on about strangers while Bradly tried to calm him down. Knowing there was little time left, he got straight to the point. “I was actually talking to your uncle the other day and I’m a little worried something might happen.”

“Like what?” Levan tipped his head, frowning.

“I don’t know,” Gold admitted. “Can you make me a promise?”

Levan shrugged. “I guess. Depends what it is.”

“If your father ever looks like he is in trouble, I need you to call either my number or the sheriff, even if you think what’s happening is just an accident.” He handed over a slip of paper with his number on it. “Do you have a phone? Can you do that?”

The boy didn’t get a chance to answer as Brian’s voice commanded the attention of everyone in the area, turning heads as he approached. “You see, I told you this was a bad idea.” 

Gold used the shift in public attention to slip away through the park unnoticed and begin his journey back to the pawn shop. As he strode away he tried to listen to the conversation of the Foresters behind him, but only Brian’s more shrill tones sounded anything like speech. Deciding it was a good sign that no one was shouting for his return, Gold left the park. All he could do now was hope that Levan would be able to do as he’d asked.

* *

Belle called at five thirty and said she was locking up for the day. She insisted on meeting him at the shop since that’s where both the car and the picnic basket were, saying it didn’t make sense to come get her only to turn around and retrace his steps. There was no arguing the point with her, so when Gold heard the shop’s door open five minutes later, he put on his most devilishly flirtatious look and turned from the counter, voice dripping with lust. “Shop’s closed, but I’m sure we can-”

“Woah!” Emma Swan shot back at him, holding out her hands as if warding off evil. “I did _not_ come here for that.”

Gold’s lips curled upward in a sneer, his eyes narrowing. “Then what _did_ you come for, Miss Swan, because, as I’m sure you noticed, the sign on the door reads ‘closed’ and I was, very obviously, expecting my wife.”

“I came to ask you a few questions.” The sheriff stood stiffly in front of the counter, leather jacket creaking as she folded her arms over her chest. “Starting with, ‘What did I tell you about stalking that kid?’”

“I’m sorry?” Gold feigned innocence even though he knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere. He wanted to know what it was _she_ knew. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, Gold,” Emma spat angrily. “Your memory is sharper than a needle and we both know it. You’re not convincing me that you forgot about our little chat the other day.” She put her hands on the counter and leaned closer. “We had a deal. I gave you the name of the kid, you promised to leave him alone.”

Gold smiled as he walked around to the back room to cut off the lights, then crossed the distance to face her. “Oh, we didn’t have a deal, we had an understanding. Deals get broken. Understandings..” He raised one shoulder in a lopsided shrug and made a noncommittal noise. “Those can be easily _mis_understood.”

Emma raised her hand and dropped it down to her leg, where it slapped hard in a release of her frustration. “How can you possibly misunderstand the words ‘don’t stalk the kid!’”

“I’m not the one who did the misunderstanding,” Gold told her, poking an accusatory finger her way. “You were.”

“I’m sorry?” The blonde frowned, eyebrows knitting in that way that only Emma Swan seemed capable of.

At this moment the door chimed again and Gold leaned around the sheriff so that he could send a smile Belle’s way. “I think I finally understand why you’ve come here, Sheriff, so let me make everything clear to you. Today my wife and I took our lunch in the park.” He held out a hand for a slightly confused Belle to take and drew her close as he spoke. “We also took our time, and as a result, Belle needed to hurry back to the library. I offered to pack everything so she could go ahead and I’m afraid that when I turned to leave I collided with a boy running past. It’s my fault, of course. I simply wasn’t looking where I was going.”

Belle’s eyes narrowed. “Are you both okay?”

“Perfectly,” Gold assured her. “Neither of us worse for wear.” He held up his arms to display the evidence of his still pristine suit, then turned his hands and face to prove there were also no marks on his skin.

“So why do I have several frantic messages back at the office claiming that a man in a suit was caught talking to a kid named Levan in the park who seemed to vanish without a trace the minute someone started to question his motives?”

“Well, I’m quite flattered by your confidence in my abilities, Miss Swan, but I’m afraid even I can’t do a disappearing act like that. If you’re here to take a statement, I will happily go on record as saying that the boy and I collided and I made sure to apologize and check on his wellbeing before moving on. I _did_ have my own shop to reopen, after all.” He leaned closer, eyes sharp, the sneer returning. “Staying closed for extended lunches is bad for business.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Look, I’m not here to arrest you, but I am going to give you a warning. Those messages say you made some sort of threat to the kid and then gave him your number. I may not know what’s going on, but whatever it is, its gonna stop. You got that?”

“I can promise you, Miss Swan, that today’s incident was a random happenstance.” Gold gestured at the door and took a step or two forward, guiding the sheriff toward the exit. “I have no indention of contacting the boy again.”

The blonde’s eyes narrowed. “Why does that sound suspiciously like you’ve just weaseled your way out of something?”

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Belle piped in from where she stood, left behind in Gold’s attempt to rid them of the sheriff. “But I’m sure this really _is_ just a misunderstanding.”

“I can only assume that the reports were sent in by the boy’s friends. Have you met them, by chance? The thinner one _is_ rather energetic,” Gold explained to Emma as he resumed their slow walk to the door. “In fact, I believe the best term to use would be ‘easily excitable.’”

“No,” Emma folded her arms again. “I haven’t met them. But it sounds like _you_ have.”

Gold waved her off. “Only in passing, I assure you.” He decided it couldn’t be a lie if the meeting in question took place across the country and in another life altogether.

The sheriff sighed and turned for the door, speaking over her shoulder as she went. “One more complaint and I’ll have to act on it,” she warned him. “Keep away from that kid.”

He nodded as Emma left and felt Belle’s hand squeeze his. “What was all that about?” Her voice held only the slightest concern, carrying more confusion in the tone than anything else.

“It seems that someone has misinterpreted the incident I described at the park.” Gold shrugged as he snaked his hand to her lower back and guided her close. “I can only assume it was the overly protective Brian. He will undoubtedly have been flustered over a stranger such as myself interacting with a child he doesn’t know. I’m sure the incident is already forgotten.”

Belle’s brows furrowed. “It sounded fairly serious to me.”

Gold shut the door as they exited and tested the lock. “I promise, sweetheart. Whatever it is that has upset these two is far less important than-”

At that moment, a sharp tone escaped from his pocket. Gold pulled out his cell phone and stared down at the screen, which revealed a series of numbers that seemed cobbled together at random. Though he didn’t recognize the origin, he accepted the incoming call and began to lift the phone to his ear, but stopped when a voice reached out from the unknown, shrill and desperate.

“Mister Gold? My father’s in trouble!”

“Levan,” Gold almost shouted as he switched the phone to speaker mode. “Where are you?”

“In the woods. By the mines.” The boy was panting as if he were running. “My uncle brought me. Then my dad showed up. Please!” The last word was a piercing shill of desperation. 

“I’m coming. I’m on my way.” Gold ended the call, spun to Belle, and nodded down the road. “Get Sheriff Swan, tell her to meet us by the mines.”

“What are you going to do?” Belle was already fumbling for her phone. “What’s going on?”

“We don’t have time for that now. Just call. I’ll explain everything when I can, but right now I’ve got to go help.” Gold leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “I’ll see you there.” He whispered the words into her ear, clinging to her proximity longer than he should have. Staying this close wasn’t only preventing him from getting in the car, it was preventing her from calling Emma. 

“I love you.” After whispering the words, Gold forced himself away and hurried to his car. He glanced in the rear view mirror as he drove off, seeing Belle standing outside the shop, talking into her phone. She seemed either angry or excited, but the increasing distance wouldn’t allow him to make the distinction and he could only hope that the call was going their way. It wouldn’t do to have the sheriff continue to distrust him when the life of the boy’s father was at stake.

He sped down the street wondering exactly how he was going to explain this entire thing when all was said and done. Now that something was actually happening, it was almost a guarantee that Gold would be pulled in to the investigation, if only as a witness. Every connection between his two lives couldn’t be written off as a hunch. Once, maybe twice, that little scam would work, but it wouldn’t apply easily here. Both the family and the authorities already believed he had some kind of fixation with the boy and though that was true in a convoluted way, it certainly couldn’t be explained by saying he’d dreamed of the family in the night. Gold thought about blaming his hunch on something Harold had said in the store. Anything would do as long as Roy hadn’t been there to hear it. Maybe he could combine that with the conversation he’d had with the driver.

The road leading to the mine’s entrance was blocked by two large iron arms and Gold pulled his car to a stop only inches from them. Cutting the engine, he flew from the seat as soon as he was able, calling out as he hurried around the barrier on foot. “Levan!” His voice bounced around the trees that lined the area, but no answer came back. “Levan! It’s Mister Gold! I came to help.”

Gold hurried forward, careful of his footing around the loose rock and debris before hearing the distinctive click of a rifle. “Not another step,” a gruff voice ordered from the line of trees, somewhere to his left. He’d heard it before, but it didn’t belong to either of the Leones and he couldn’t quite place it.

“There’s a boy in trouble,” Gold pleaded, raising his hands to hover just barely away from his sides, trying not to appear as a threat. “I’ve got to help him. Lives could be at stake.”

“Enough people are traipsing through my woods as it is,” the voice grunted back.

“The jewelers own these woods by the mine,” Gold reminded whoever it was. “This is their property.”

The click came again, along with the sound of branches shifting. “Then the mine is where you will make certain you end up,” the man ordered as his words retreated into the forest.

By the time Gold turned, there as no evidence of anyone around him. Sighing with relief, he moved forward again, following the road, calling every few steps. “Levan! Levan, it’s Gold!” A part of him worried that if Harold were aware of his presence it might make things worse for both Roy and his son, but since it sounded like the boy had been running, Gold was almost certain that he would be found somewhere between the entrance and the gate, either on the road or among the trees.

“Levan! I can’t help you if you don’t come to me,” Gold implored as he rushed down the last few yards toward the roped off area that surrounded the mine’s entrance. His head turned one way, then another, trying to take in all of the area at once. Somewhere in the distance he heard the faintest sound of a siren and hoped that whatever help was on the way, it wouldn’t arrive too late.

“Here,” a boy’s voice called out from the base of a tree. “I’m here.”

Gold spun to the right to see Levan sitting on the ground, hands around his ankle. “Are you all right?” He crossed the distance between them, squatting to check the boy over.

“I tripped,” Levan told him. The boy’s teeth flashed as he gnashed them together to hold back the pain he was experiencing. “Please,” he begged, eyes wide and filled with tears. “Go help my dad.”

The sirens grew louder as Gold rose to his feet again. “Someone’s coming,” he told the boy. “The sheriff. Maybe an ambulance. So if you see anyone else, you let them find you, okay?”

Levan nodded and Gold slid down the short, rocky slope that led to the mine. A line of tracks poked out from the dusty rubble at his feet, disappearing into the dark mouth of rock and wood, beckoning for him to follow. Placing a hand on one of the weathered beams, he hovered at the opening, listening for the sounds of a struggle or argument. Distant voices echoed back at him and he took in a deep breath to calm his nerves. The sirens growing louder provided reassurance, but he also knew he couldn’t count on the approaching vehicles to maneuver around the barrier with any sort of speed, so with a brief thought to his love for Belle, Gold ducked inside.

Once inside, the tracks were free of debris and well used, making a clear walkway under the wooden supports and cold rock that surrounded him. Light from the cave’s entrance retreated quickly as he moved forward and Gold made certain that each of his steps scuffed some part of the iron at his feet to confirm his movement in the right direction. Gradually, as he began to think he would lose the last trace of light from the outside world, a warm glow appeared beyond the mine’s next turn. 

Roy’s voice called out as Gold moved on through the now brightening tunnel. “Harold, what are you-”

A metallic crash shattered the air, urging Gold forward with greater speed. “You expect to keep the family’s little empire all to yourself.” Harold’s voice rumbled from somewhere ahead. “Pushing me away from our family home, keeping me down here while you get all the glory from your pristine throne of crystal and jewels.”

“You have half of everything,” Roy sputtered out, voice strained but powerful enough to project over a repeated, metallic scraping sound. 

“Half isn’t enough, dear brother. Our father intended for me to _do_ more.”

“Our father made that agreement thinking you were-” A hiss interrupted the words as Gold rushed forward. He was close. Ahead and to the left there was a wide opening with a brilliant pool of light spilling from it. Gold could barely make out some kind of lever or control beyond the arch of stone and wood. It seemed similar to the workings of the elevator in Belle’s library, though he he had never seen the thing used and hadn’t given the device it any thought until now.

“Oh do go on. Were you going to say ‘clearheaded?’ Or perhaps ‘mentally stable’ were the words you would have chosen.” Harold’s voice was close and Gold slowed his pace, picking his steps carefully so as not to make any noise.

The scraping ahead of him continued and Gold peeked around the turn to see Roy dangling from a utilitarian elevator, legs flailing against the metal sides, desperately trying to find purchase. His hands grasped the rail in a vice-like grip that seemed to be slacking with every movement of the man’s body. The muscles in his neck strained with effort, his face a contortion of desperation and pain. Gold wasn’t sure how much longer the jeweler could hold on. He tried to listen for the sirens, but they were too deep below ground to be heard.

“You want _power_, Harold. You never cared about the family trade.”

Harold pounced toward his brother, arms outstretched as if he were going to clutch the other man’s wrists and haul him to safety, but remembering what Armel had described about Derek’s death, Gold knew he couldn’t allow it. He scrambled around the rock wall and stumbled in to the room, crying out, “He’s not worth the effort!”

The slender, darker haired brother turned, his scar making an odd line of shadow near his eye. “You?”

“Yes, me.” Gold wasn’t at all sure what he was doing, but every second that he could keep one brother from the other was another second closer to getting help, so he kept on. “And more down the tunnel. It’s over, Harold.”

Harold laughed, the sound of his amusement echoing off of the walls and down into the pit that might soon consume his brother. “What do _you_ know?”

“Plenty,” Gold said stiffening his neck and back to give off an air of authority. “Did you forget I own a shop too?” He took a tentative step to the side, angling himself closer to the elevator controls by pacing around Harold. “And you know what? This won’t work anyway. I’m here now.”

“The pit is big enough for both of you,” Harold hissed, stepping closer to Gold. 

Gold tipped his mouth upward in a smile he didn’t quite feel, but hoped would hide the fear that was pressing around him. There was something in the back of his mind about falling through a hole in the ground, something he couldn’t remember happening but that he was certain he had experienced. The height of the shaft was trying to draw the truth of it out of him, but he fought back. “Maybe,” he said after another step. “But what about your nephew? And the sheriff?” He took another step closer to the lift, and peered over the edge. They were just barely high enough that the fall could kill anyone landing on the ground below. “Think we’ll all fit down there?” He took another step, managing a casual attitude despite what he was about to do. “And don’t forget the time it’ll take to hide the bodies. Once the sheriff arrives, it won’t take them long to find you.”

Harold’s eyes narrowed as his body shifted away from his brother and toward Gold. “Well, let’s just see if they _do_ get here in time…”

Just as Harold lunged at him, Gold leapt to the elevator’s controls, flipping the lever and sending lift down to the the floor below, taking Roy with it. He had just enough time to hope the jeweler would jump to safety when he could before Harold collided into him smashing his body into the metal console with the full force of his body. Somehow Gold managed to shove the man off and spin away to put distance between them, but the distance didn’t last long as Harold lunged again. 

Bending so that his shoulder would be level to Harold’s chest, Gold charged, hoping to knock the wind from the taller man. They connected and fell away from each other, but Gold succeeded only in forcing his opponent to regain his balance. “Missed,” he snarled, more to himself than to Harold, but he found satisfaction as the other man’s sneer grew bitter, assuming for the taunt to be aimed at him.

The two circled each other, ready for another charge. Gold tried to maneuver himself so that his run would take him to the tracks. He had no idea if he could outrun Harold, but he suspected Roy might be able to and counted on the other man to prevent his brother’s pursuit. Of course, that was assuming he could find a way back up to their level. 

The lift suddenly shut down and Gold made a dash for the exit, hoping to topple Harold along the way. Instead, the other man caught hold of Gold’s body and threw him to the ground.

Pain rippled through him and his head swam as it was jolted first forward in the fall, then back with the force of impact. Sputtering and gasping for air, Gold twisted to his side, hoping to roll away, but a foot came at him, forcing him back. In his retreat he found an opportunity and grasped hold the hovering limb, trying to twist or wrench it in any direction that went away from his own body.

With a yelp of pain, Harold landed on the floor a loud crack converting the cry into silence.

Off to the side, the elevator’s motor kicked in again. “Brother? Gold?” Roy’s voice crawled upward at the speed of the machine.

As Gold struggled to get to his hands and knees, he hissed out a brief call of his own name, pushing it through the pain of standing. One hand on the mine’s wall, he leaned heavily against the stone to brace himself and tried to focus his eyes on the man who had attacked him. “He’s… breathing,” he announced horsely as he watched Harold’s chest rise and fall. His vision swam and he felt dizzy, but he pressed forward, fighting his body in an attempt to confirm the diagnosis.

He heard a scramble of feet behind him and felt a strong arm reach under his own to brace him. “Let’s get you outside,” Roy said in a tone that would not be ignored.

Gold was not about to refuse and allowed himself to be escorted back along the tracks and toward the fading light of the departing day. Sirens filled the tunnel as they approached its entrance, red and blue lights bouncing around the walls in pulses, circling and swishing in odd patterns that made Gold shut his eyes against the visual cacophony. It was too much stimulation for his shaken mind to process.

The moment the steady, welcoming light of a setting sun fell on his face, an all to familiar scream pierced the air. Instantly Gold was back in the car, head spinning, glass shattering around him as Belle cried out. The last sound he would ever hear her make. Behind him, Gideon’s voice echoed the same fear of death, shattering Gold’s heart. His only son begging to be saved with his final breaths.

Familiar hands cupped his face, gentle and soft, yet pressing with a singular need. Gold thought he heard whispers of concern from his wife, begging him to open his eyes, but other voices and questions suddenly overpowered Belle’s sweet tones. Demands from the sheriff and about five other people washed over him as the pressure at his side shifted. His was weight transfered from one thick arm to two slimmer ones that began to guide him away. Gold tried to open his eyes, but the light was too much for them, even dimming as it was, and everything around him was so loud that it was almost unbearable. Did he hit his head when he went down? He hadn’t thought so. Was it the whiplash?

Out of the indistinct chatter that surrounded him, he could make out Roy’s deep tones, Emma’s urgent orders, and Belle’s steady ramblings at his side, but one voice was missing. “The boy,” he rasped. It hurt to take in air. “The son. His son.”

A stranger answered him, close at his ear. “Didn’t think your son was here.” Gold realized it was one of the men who supported him that was speaking.

_No,_ thought Gold. _Not Gideon._

“Gideon?” The unknown person questioned, replying to Gold’s thought, making him wonder if he had somehow managed to speak the words. A moment later, he was calling out into the already deafening racket. “Gideon. Is there a Gideon here?”

At Gold’s other shoulder, another man spoke out in a harsh whisper. “Stop it. His son isn’t here, he’s dead. Pulled him from the wreck myself.” It was a harsh hiss of a command, sharp with anger and frustration. “Idiot. Just get him to the ambulance and shut up.”

He was certain the men hadn’t intended to be heard. Maybe they thought he was delusional or bordering consciousness. It was possible, he supposed, maybe why he couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes. After a few more stumbling steps, encouraged by the ever-present whispers from Belle, Gold felt his body shifted to a prone position, his weight transfered again from arms to a soft surface that wobbled under his weight.

“Gold. Can you open your eyes, sir?”

Slowly one lid fluttered open and there, behind the man speaking, was the only woman he would ever love.

“Belle…”

Her hands snatched at his arm as if she were trying to pull herself toward him, then found his hand and squeezed. “I’m here,” she told him softly.

“Did you hit your head, sir?” That same medic again, prodding him with questions as he probed him with lights and touch. Hands ran over his ribs, making him hiss. “That hurts? There was a shifting of cloth and cold air on his skin. “Might be broken. We’ll get you to the hospital. Don’t think anything is punctured, but we don’t want to take the chance.

“Belle…” Gold rasped out her name and the hands gave a squeeze.

“I’ll follow you in the car,” she told him. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Tears streamed from Gold’s eyes as he felt sudden movement, heard a count, and was jerked away from the only touch that mattered in the world. He heard a gasp, a sob, and then the slam of doors leading to darkness.

* *

When Gold’s eyes finally opened, they had only the sterile wall of a hospital room to focus on. As if the visual wasn’t enough proof of his location, the chirps and peeps of mechanical birds signaled that he had left the woods well behind and was back in the city. The sounds called up horrible memories of Belle prone on a bed, pale and clinging to life, of Gideon bandaged and bruised, linked to boxes with flashing lights. Though he knew what each peep meant, he couldn’t bring himself give a proper name to the noises he heard, so he allowed the illusion of mechanical creatures to continue as he woke, shoving the truth to the back of his mind.

For a moment, for a single, blissful moment, he managed to convince himself that all of the days since the accident were a dream, that he was just now waking up. Whale would come in and tell him he had a concussion and that his wife and son were in other rooms, awaiting their own recoveries. It had all been an illusion conjured by a concoction of medications that Gold would never be able to pronounce properly. That was why he couldn’t remember his past. He’d been asleep. Sleep does so many horrible things to the mind.

“Excuse me,” Belle’s voice called in the distance, altered by the sound of being enclosed or exposed or maybe released into some kind of box. “He’s waking up.”

She must have been calling to the nurses’ desk, Gold realized when he heard her heels clicking on the hard tile of the floor. Fingers tangled themselves into his left hand and another hand reached up to caress his face and brush hair from the side. Turning his head, he gave a smile. “Belle.”

“Hey,” she whispered, her own smile growing in answer to his. “They found Levan. His father is fine.” Her hands trailed down his neck and shoulder to run lightly over the side where he felt less pain. “You, on the other hand, broke one rib and bruised plenty of others.”

“Harold.” Gold rasped the name, then moved his tongue over dried lips in a futile effort to wet them. Belle’s hand left his side and brought a straw close enough that he could reach.

“Little sips,” she told him. He complied happily, grateful for the cool liquid. When he had taken enough, she removed the straw and he heard the soft clunk of a plastic cup being set on a wooden surface. “And Harold is here too, somewhere. I heard them talking about a head injury. That’s all I know.”

“Well, Gold.” Whale’s voice bounced in on the tail of Belle’s soft words. “You’re a lucky man.” He entered the room and hovered at the foot of Gold’s bed, clipboard gripped loosely in front of him.

“Perfect,” huffed Gold as he tried to shift his weight upward on the mattress. “I needed that reminder.”

The doctor came to the side of his bed and pressed a button to raise the head of it to a sitting position. “Better?”

“Much.” Gold tested the motion of his body, which seemed to hold a surprising amount of mobility. His right side twinged with pain if he moved much at all, and deeper breaths were difficult, but his arms and legs worked as they should. Whale stared down at him throughout the process, a smirk on his face, silently gloating over the results he had brought about. 

“When do I leave?” Gold huffed, more because of the doctor’s expression than out of an actual desire to be discharged.

“Well, you got beaten around a little and broke a rib, and since you’d had past brain trauma we went ahead and took you for some scans while we were patching you up.” The doctor pulled out a small pen light and flashed it in Gold’s face, making him squint and turn away. He tried to reach a hand up and swat at the thing, but Belle caught hold of him before his arm lifted more than an inch from the bed. She knew him too well. “No damage there,” Whale declared, putting the light away. “I can only assume you got a little whiplashed during your struggles. We let you sleep off the worst of the nausea. So as soon as you’re awake enough _and_ sturdy on your feet, you’re free to go. Belle has all your discharge information and knows how to tend to those bandages.”

“The Leones,” Gold pressed. “Harold?”

Whale seemed ignorant for a breath or two, then his face lit with excitement. “Oh, well, you didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Not exactly,” Gold huffed. “But that will do.” He flicked his free hand dismissively at the door, trying to shoo the bright eyed doctor away.

The man didn’t need a second invitation and drifted toward the door, taking on the demeanor of distraction that he was practically famous for. “No sudden movements,” he rattled out as he left the room. “Take it easy when you get home.” Any other orders were whisked away by the man’s speedy retreat.

Belle leaned forward to press her forehead to Gold’s, her hand running tenderly through his hair. “When you came out of that mine, I was so worried...”

Gold huffed, trying to brush off her concern. “I have a single broken rib, a couple of bruises, and my head was flopped around a bit. It’s hardly a death sentence.” He sighed and hissed as he moved to to the edge of the bed, then nodded his head sideways in a beckoning gesture. 

Climbing in beside him, Belle rested her head by his shoulder, eyes gleaming wickedly. “They’ll be upset if they catch us.”

“Let them,” Gold grunted playfully, pulling her as close as his body could stand.

Whale’s report wasn’t what one would call professional, but Gold didn’t care. He had basically been given a clean bill of health and would be able to leave with Belle as soon as he could prove to the doctors that he wouldn’t keel over. Taking in a slow, careful breath, Gold filled his lungs to stretch them as much as he felt he was able, then released the air just as carefully, testing his limits. He repeated the process again and again until Belle lifted her head to look quizzically at him.

“What _are_ you doing?”

Eyebrows rising suggestively, Gold flashed a playful grin. “Just checking to see how flexible I might be later.” This got him a playful shove, which he made certain to wince at so that a kiss of apology would follow. He wasn’t disappointed. 

“Seriously?” The voice of Emma Swan thrust itself into the room at about the same time Gold’s tongue thrust itself into Belle’s mouth. “I know I tell you to get a room, but _this_ doesn’t count as one!”

Gold chuckled as the kiss ended. “Miss Swan, if you are going to tell me that I am not allowed to comfort my wife after the stress she endured in the last twelve hours, you can-”

A light touch brushed over his lips as Belle’s finger tapped them gently. Her eyes flickered the promise of time together in the future, even as she carefully extracted herself from the bed, smoothed her clothing, and gestured at the chair that had once been hers. “Would you like to sit?”

Emma shook her head as she stepped closer to Gold’s prone and bandaged form. “I need some answers.”

“Well, I don’t see how refusing my wife’s hospitality changes that.” Gold grinned wickedly up at Emma, enjoying his game of taunts. He tried to resettle himself in the bed, making a show of adjusting sheets and blankets. When all she did was glare in response, he finally relented. “All right, do what you must. Though don’t think I’ve missed your decision to confront a captive audience.” 

The woman didn’t even blink at his retort. “We’ll start with the easy ones,” she said as she hovered over him and began to ask about the events in the mines. 

To the best of his ability, Gold explained every detail, down to the various implied threats made against himself and Levan. Occasionally he backpedaled and retold some part of what happened not in the hopes of correcting it, but in an attempt to take up enough time that someone would arrive to kick the woman out. If he could only take up as much time as possible, he decided, they wouldn’t get to the parts of the interrogation that he wanted to avoid, like the hows and whys of following the Leone family around.

Not the type to take meticulous notes like Rogers, the sheriff simply listened, nodded when she saw fit, and had him fill in details that she thought might have been weak or lacking in some way. The process did take time, but not enough time for her to be removed before she could get to the more personal questions. “How the hell did you know this was going to happen anyway?”

“I didn’t,” Gold hissed, angry at himself for not managing the interview better.

“A complaint was filed against you about talking to that kid and just the other day you had me investigating the Leones to find out if they even _had_ a kid in the first place.” She tossed a thumb over her shoulder at some indeterminate part of the hospital beyond his own. “And Levan says you _warned_ him that something was going to happen. He called you because you _asked_ him to. Wanna explain that?”

“Not especially, no.” Gold kept his eyes on the tape stuck to his hand, but when the words were met with silence, he looked up to see an expectant sheriff glaring down at him, arms crossed over her chest. He gave his most dramatic sigh, added a head roll for good measure, then proceeded to explain as best he could with as much attitude as he could muster in an attempt to finally drive her away. “I bought a bracelet for Belle at the festival and decided the next day that I might look around for something more.” As he spoke, he lifted his hands and moved them from one side of the bed to the other as if pointing out his movements. “While I was talking to Harold, Roy walked in and I got the feeling that something was going on between the two of them.”

“What kind of something?” Emma huffed the words.

He rolled his eyes. “You’ll have to ask them,” he growled. “But based off of recent experience, I’d say someone wanted Roy dead.” This earned him a look of apology, but not the reprieve he hoped for.

“Go on.”

Gold sighed again. Where was Whale when he was _actually_ needed? “It just seemed to me that Roy was pushing Harold away from their customers. And when I left I ran into one of their workers who seemed less than enthusiastic about his responsibilities under Harold’s watchful eye.” It wasn’t the entire truth, but it wasn’t a lie either, he decided. At least it was more believable than anything he could have come up with regarding his time in Seattle.

“Let me get this straight.” Emma’s hands flew to her back pockets and tucked themselves inside as she glared at him suspiciously. “You ran into a disgruntled employee and decided that meant someone was going to get killed?”

“No, Miss Swan, I spoke to a few people and got a very bad feeling out of the collection of my conversations.” Gold’s voice was on edge. He could feel his blood beginning to boil at the idea of having to keep this up much longer. Belle’s hand rested gently on his arm as she read the signs of his anger. A single, gentle sweep of her thumb over his skin was enough of a balm to soothe any of the burn from his emotions. He took as steadying of a breath as he could and sighed. “Now, if saving the life of a fellow shopkeeper is somehow a crime, I gladly offer myself up for removal from the premises, otherwise I’d ask you to kindly leave the room.” He shifted again in the bed for visual emphasis of his next statement. “I seem to remember that this gown doesn’t close well in the back.”

Quickly picking up on the fact that Gold intended to leave the bed with or without her standing beside it, Emma raised her hands from her pockets to hover at her sides. “Right. I’m going. If I have any more questions, I’ll call you down to the station.”

“A fine idea, Miss Swan,” Gold remarked as she made a hasty retreat, closing the room’s door behind her.

Gold let out a chuckle and settled back into the bed.

Looking from her husband to the door and back again, Belle lowered the hand she had put out to help him to his feet. “Were you… getting up?”

“No, sweetheart.” He grinned up at her, heart fluttering as he caught the realization in her eyes. “I just wanted to see how fast she would run.”

* *

Hours after the sheriff’s informal interrogation, Gold found himself carefully climbing the steps to his front door. Belle hovered at his side, arms drifting closer to his body every time he moved away. He was sore all over, his muscles aching in places on his body that he’d never known contained muscles in the first place and the bones beneath feeling as if they were sharp rocks, swelling and pressing against his flesh to try and get out. 

“I’m capable of standing on my own,” he teased as Belle dithered between wanting to hover at his side and needing to unlock the door for him. He turned and reached out to her, drawing her close and gently wrapping his arms around her. “This is nothing like last time.” The words were a soft whisper and followed by a tender kiss.

Belle sighed when they parted. “I know,” she said, her eyes filled with sadness. “But I can’t help worrying about you. What you did today…”

“What I did today,” Gold told her, squaring his shoulders a little before remembering that movement would pull in all the wrong places, “was what I had to do. We lost Gideon and maybe I put too much of that loss into the lives of people I barely knew, but in the end everything I did was for the right reasons. I can’t bring you back to Gideon, but Levan still has his father.”

“Can’t bring Gideon back,” Belle corrected as she left his arms and turned to the door. Opening it, she stepped inside and waited for him to follow.

Gold tipped his head in mock confusion. “What did I say?”

“That you couldn’t take me to Gideon.”

Entering the house, Gold shook his head at himself. “Busy day,” he muttered as he gripped the rail to the stairs. “Lots of medication. I should-”

“You should go to bed,” Belle told him in a tone that said she wouldn’t put up with anything else. Her hand settled on top of his and she gazed up into his face with pleading eyes. “I’ll help you. And I can bring up some food later.”

Deciding he didn’t have much choice, Gold rounded the staircase and began his slow, agonizing climb, taking each step carefully, pausing on the landings, and finally shuffling himself into the bedroom. He stood by the bed and worked on the buttons of his shirt while Belle fetched his night clothes and brought them over. 

Instantly his eyebrows lifted. “It’ll be easier for both of us if I just leave them off, you know.”

“They told you to take it easy,” she scolded. Dropping the pile of clothes onto the bed, she came around to help him with the last of the buttons and ease his shirt from his shoulders.

“All right,” Gold agreed. “I’ll make you a deal. You help me get undressed and if you aren’t in the least bit turned on by the end of it, I’ll put those on.”

Belle laughed as his hand snaked around to her back to make lazy circles at the base of her spine. She squirmed with delight and pressed against him just as he knew she would. The pressure was painful, but not as painful as her refusal of his attentions would be. “That’s not fair,” she protested.

“I never said I’d keep my hands off you.” He lowered his head to kiss her neck, causing another shiver to rise through her, then whispered against her raised skin. “Or my lips.” 

She bumped against him again and it hurt, but it was a beautiful pain, one he could put up with for just long enough, if she’d let him.

Moments later they were undressing each other, each careful shift of clothing an expression of their love. Gold’s sleeping pants and shirt ended up in a heap on the floor, joining what he and Belle shed in the span of what felt like hours. Their lovemaking was just as delicate and sent them both into a state of bliss that they had never shared before. Each small adjustment in position, each feathery touch over skin drove them wild with need for each other, and when Belle finally sank down around him, every roll of her hips felt like being caressed by a wave of liquid adoration. After an extensive foreplay brought on by necessity, neither of them lasted long and soon Belle was settled against his side, head on his shoulder, hand caressing whatever skin wasn’t bandaged.

“Do you…” Belle’s eyes drifted away from watching her fingers ghost over him and lifted to meet his curious gaze. “Do you… dream about him often?”

Gold didn’t have to ask, but he did it anyway. “Gideon?”

Belle let out a hum of acknowledgment, blue eyes refusing to pull away. Moisture pooled at the corners, but didn’t fall.

“Every night,” Gold admitted, glad for the release of his secret truth.

Belle’s mouth twitched upwards and she settled back to her previous position, fingertips dancing over exposed flesh, breath seeming to blow each movement along. She was quiet, but he could tell she was weighing something in her mind, so he let her have the peace she needed. It didn’t take long for her to look up at him again. “Is it… just the tiny home or… other things?”

A sigh escaped him before he could contain it and Gold felt her flinch with worry. On instinct alone, his arm pulled her to his chest and he grunted out at the forgotten discomfort, which went ignored otherwise. This conversation was more important than a few bumps and bruises. “Do you really want to know?”

She nodded against him. “I do.” There was another pause and she shrugged a little. “I… miss sharing him with you.”

It was a sentiment Gold felt as well. Gideon hadn’t just been their son, he had been a part of each of them, a true combination of the two of them. He was born of their love and carried it so fully within himself that their lives felt tied together by it. It wasn’t that they each raised a son, the three of them had created a family. Most of those who watched their boy grow up had, at one point or another, tried to guide them away from being what they called overprotective or hovering parents, and that might have been what it looked like on the outside, but from the inside, they were simply one entity, a heart that beat three times instead of only twice.

With a breath to prepare himself, Gold began to tell the story. “We live in a part of Seattle called Hyperion Heights…”

He didn’t tell her most things, didn’t explain the shift of his dream cycle or that she had not been a part of their lives. Surprisingly, Belle hadn’t asked. She wanted to hear Gideon stories; what he studied in school, who his friends were, and asked Gold to describe the crate’s interior about five times. When he explained that the dreams felt linear, she insisted on hearing the whole story, beginning to end and so Gold told her everything about Gideon’s life that she had missed. She worried when Gideon wasn’t acting right and agreed that he might have fallen in with the wrong crowd, but when she realized it was the cargo home that had kept him away, Belle seemed overjoyed. They both agreed that their son had so much potential and that Tilly seemed to be just the friend to push his confidence forward, nudge him into new things. The fact that Gideon was happy in these dreams made Belle happy and the life that she believed was being imagined for him brought a smile to her face as they talked well into the night.

Curiosity eventually sated, Belle began to drift into sleep, her breathing slowing to a familiar brush of air over his skin, the steady rise and fall of her chest beginning to lull Gold into his own rest, but just as he was beginning to drift off, he heard a whisper and tipped his head down to look at Belle. He let out a querying sound as he gently ran a hand over the smooth curves of her side.

“If you see him,” Belle murmured, “Tell him I love him.”

Tears filled Gold’s eyes and he nuzzled into her hair, breathing in her scent and wishing he could take it with him. “I will,” he murmured as he followed her into sleep.

* * Weaver * *

Weaver felt like shit. Every muscle ached and his eyes were most certainly full of cement. They refused to open for what felt like an hour and once he finally managed to make tiny slit-like gaps between their lids, he realized the headache he was feeling wasn’t a headache at all, it was the alarm buzzing incessantly at his ear. The sound was so loud that it seemed to duplicate itself, pulsing in alternating, overlapping squawks and buzzes. It took about a minute of hearing the noise to realize that it was coming from two alarms, the one beside him, and one farther off, muffled by his bedroom wall.

Flinging out a hand to smack his own mechanical menace, Weaver practically fell out of bed and staggered down the hall to Gideon’s room where his son was still sleeping even though his clock was squealing away. Gideon truly had dropped to the bed in his clothes and was half draped off the corner of the mattress, obviously going to sleep wherever he’d fallen a few hours ago.

Weaver walked into the room and pushed at his son’s foot. “Gideon.” No motion came and the detective tried again, nudging harder this time and giving the boy’s shoe a smack for good measure. “Hey son, time to get up.”

This earned him a grunt as Gideon’s arm began to move, swinging toward the alarm in a futile attempt to reach the device that sat about two feet out of reach.

“Didn’t quite make it all the way to bed, did you?” Weaver circled the room and pressed the button for him. “That’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

Gideon rolled over slowly, draping a hand over his eyes. “No, Papa. I came home late.”

“Well, we both did, in the end,” Weaver huffed as he gave his son another slap on the shoe. “Come on. Get up. We’ve both got to pay for our outing last night.” He pulled the curtain a little to force light into the room, which earned another groan from the bed. “I’ll make a start on breakfast.”

After taking only two steps from the window, Weaver heard a grunt of displeasure, this one more emotionally pained and fed up than something born from lack of sleep. “Seriously?”

Weaver’s head pulled back slightly in confusion. “Yes. Breakfast. You still need-”

A pillow flew from the bed and whacked him in the groin. “No, not breakfast,” Gideon laughed. “You had three hours, Papa. Three.”

For a moment, Weaver couldn’t work out what his son was on about, until he bent to pick up the pillow and noticed the state of his sleeping pants. The evidence of his night with Belle was a dark contrast to the lighter color of the fabric and all of it was highlighted spectacularly by the ray of sunlight streaming through he window.

“Three hours,” Gideon repeated, though he was laughing. “How did you sleep that well in _three_ hours?”

Weaver’s own laughter began then, the tones of father and son’s amusement joining into one expression of unity. “Can I help that I love your mother?” He asked once he could, then tossed the pillow back at Gideon’s head. “It’s how we made you.”

“Ew!” Gideon flipped the pillow away. “I know where that’s been!”

“She loves you, you know,” Weaver told him before he could realize he’d delivered the words in the state of the present instead of the past.

“I know she did,” Gideon answered, finally propping himself up in the bed. “And I love her too.”

Weaver shot him a wicked grin. “I’ll make sure to tell her tonight, when I see her.” Though he intended it to sound as if he were teasing, he meant the words with all sincerity.

“Thanks,” Gideon whispered, his face crinkling in mock disgust. “Just… do it _before_ the two of you get too busy?”

“Well I can’t make any promises.” Laughing again as his son cried out with frustration, Weaver patted the door frame for attention. “Get washed up. I’ll make us something to eat.”

“Not before you shower too!” Gideon’s voice followed Weaver out of the door and into the beginning of the long day that lay ahead of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end for this saga. There is still plenty more to come for Weaver, Gold and their families, though. If I missed out the meaning of a name, feel free to tell me.


	9. Chapter 9

The doors to the forty second precinct station opened, releasing a blast of chatter into Weaver’s face. It wasn’t the noise itself that froze him on the spot, but the combination of excitement and movement of bodies that caused him to hesitate in the entry so he could work out what exactly was going on. His head tracked one movement then another as officers and desk workers hurried from one part of the station to another, making him feel as if he were at a tennis match.

Beside him, Desk Sergeant Bryce chuckled. “Wasn’t what I was expecting either.”

Weaver moved to the sergeant’s station and leaned his arms on the top of the half wall, settling stiffly into a position of casual nonchalance. “Sleep for a couple hours and the world moves on without you,” he scoffed, tipping his head in the direction of the action. “What’d I miss?”

“You mean other than the case you solved yesterday?” Bryce gave him a wide grin.

Weaver hissed it away with a stiff roll of his head. “Nothing a little research couldn’t dig up.”

The sergeant’s eyebrows knotted with concern. “You all right? Looks more like you had a major takedown involving hand to hand combat.”

“The _room_, Sergeant?” Weaver snarled in frustration.

“Right.” He stood and crossed his tiny closet of a space to pull some papers from the printer. “We’ve got the end of your case, a repeat thief, and another homicide brought in by Lamont.”

Weaver blinked. “Third one in two weeks. It usually takes him that long to get a single case.”

“Business must be picking up,” Bryce told him.

“That comment I made the other day was a quip, Sergeant,” Weaver scolded, pushing away from the window. “I doubt he’ll take kindly to you spreading the idea around the precinct.” He left the man sputtering and maneuvered around the ever shifting mass of bodies to the door of the office he shared with Rogers.

The room was empty, desks cleared, and Weaver delighted in the idea of quiet. Shutting himself inside, he dropped to his desk, leaned forward, and rested his face in his hands. Every part of his body ached and he couldn’t tell if it was a result of Gold’s hospital stay or his own lack of sleep that was causing the joints to feel glued in place and every muscle to feel as if it were made of sharpened knives. There were still parts of the paperwork from yesterday to finish, but right now all Weaver wanted was to close his eyes, tune everything out, and return to Belle.

“What the hell happened to you?” Rogers entered the room, thankfully shutting the door behind him. “You look horrible, mate.”

“Yeah. Well I feel like I’ve been in a fight with a lion,” Weaver mumbled as he ran a hand over his face one last time to try and wake himself. “Long night.”

“Had a talk with your boy, then.” His partner didn’t ask, he knew. The man had an intuition that was constantly surprising Weaver, yet Rogers complained when it was Weaver’s intuition that brought them to the closing of their case. Weaver thought about mentioning the fact, then let it slide. He was just too damned tired to point out the flaws in his partner’s complaints. The long pause must have put doubt in the other man, because he sat with a shake of his head. “Totally understandable if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“It’s not drugs,” Weaver told him. The words came out in a flash of eagerness. He didn’t want his son’s name to be left in the muddy pit they’d tossed it in the day before. “They’re building a house.”

Rogers opened his eyes wide. “A house? Here? In Hyperion Heights?” In his amazement he leaned back in his chair, staring across the space at Weaver. “No offense, but where the bloody hell did he get the money for that?”

Weaver actually laughed. “It’s one of those tiny homes,” he explained, making a box shape on his desk with his hands. “He and his friend are converting a shipping crate.”

“So what was the package for?” Rogers leaned forward, interested.

“It’s a part for their solar panel.” Weaver sighed the words with relief. “Gideon ordered it and had it sent to Tilly so I wouldn’t find out about it.”

Rogers huffed at this. “How long did he think he was going to keep it a secret?”

“I don’t know.” Weaver shook his head and gazed out through the glass wall of their office into the still busy room beyond. “They’ve been working on it since before the accident. He didn’t want to tell me because he didn’t want me to think he was leaving.” He felt a tear on his face and turned away to check the time on the opposite wall, using the motion to hide the moisture from Rogers.

If the other detective noticed, he ignored it. “He’s a good lad. Must take after his father.”

“Oh no, he gets that from his mother,” Weaver insisted, lifting the picture from his date with Belle to caress the frame with his thumb. “I’m not the man everyone thinks I am.”

“No,” Rogers told him in a no nonsense tone. “You’re a better one.” 

Weaver felt the corner of his mouth twitch, but wasn’t about to start an argument over morality now. He had a reputation for being a hard ass who abused power, position, and people, and it was well deserved. Sometimes the feelings would come back to him and push anger to the surface, but he couldn’t ever figure out if the memories brought the anger or if he hated hated himself for having done the stuff in the first place.

“How did you two meet?” Weaver blinked up as Rogers asked the question and his partner nodded at the picture in his hand. “I know it’s hard enough getting a date on our schedules.”

The question made Weaver pause. It was something that seemed simple enough to answer, but the answer wouldn’t come. He could see moment after moment of his time with Belle before the accident, but they were hazy memories of laughter or the sparkle in her eyes. Looking down at the picture, he tried to force the memory of that night to the surface, but could barely make out the idea of the lit candle between them. Had there been a clock somewhere? There was red along the walls when they first kissed wasn’t there? Some kind of curtain?

Weaver finally shook his head. “Everything from before the accident gets all… muddled.” He waved his hand into the air, then reached out as if it could pluck the answer from the sky and pull it down to earth the way someone would catch a drifting balloon. “It’s there, but I can’t put it in place. They tell me it’s from the head trauma.”

“Sorry,” Rogers whispered. “That’s got to be a hell of a thing to live with.”

“I get by,” Weaver shrugged. “I’ve got some memories. Enough to dream about at night,” he offered, then turned the image he’d been holding around. “I have these. They help.”

“But it doesn’t affect your work,” Rogers added with astonishment.

“Well I wouldn’t be here if it did,” Weaver hissed back as he set the picture down, using a little extra force than was necessary.

Rogers flung his good hand up in the air. “Look, I didn’t mean anything by it-”

Both detectives looked up as shouts began to penetrate into their office. The words were muffled by the glass just well enough that individual sounds couldn’t be made out, but the visual told a story Weaver was all too familiar with. Gerald Lamont stood at his full height, almost toe to toe with the captain, clearly angry. Not in a mood to be taking any protests, the captain turned and began to push his way through the bustle of the room, marching directly for their office door.

“Here comes trouble,” Rogers muttered.

“A free lunch says he’s giving the case away,” Weaver added.

“Deal.” Rogers barely got the word out as the door opened.

Lamont continued shouting as the door opened. His voice began at a volume equal to someone screaming through a pillow, but thrust its way through at full volume the minute the door parted with the frame. “I am telling you, Captain, these incidents are random acts of gang violence! The situation is completely under my control!”

“Weaver. Rogers. I want the two of you to take a look at these.” Their superior tossed three files onto Weaver’s desk. The detective lifted one and chucked it to his partner, opening another for himself. “As you’ve just heard, Lamont keeps telling us they’re the work of the local gang, but something doesn’t smell right.”

“A couple of stab wounds,” Weaver told him offhandedly as his eyes flew over the text in his hands. “No evidence but the body.”

Rogers flipped through a few pages, then looked up at Weaver. “Same here. A stabbing.”

Weaver nodded and dropped the file back to his desk, then sat back and crossed his arms over his chest to glare up at Lamont and their superior. “Awfully hard to track down a murder weapon,” he said bluntly. “And the guy is listed as homeless. If there were any witnesses, I doubt they gave a damn.”

“There weren’t,” the chief barked.

“You think they’re _not_ gang related,” Rogers said as he returned his own paperwork to the pile.

“Gangs often have the same style of attack,” Lamont huffed. “It’s part of their initiation, their signature. They prove their skills by showing the man in charge that they can do things _his_ way. I’ve been gathering intel on this group and I’m telling you the attack matches their-”

Weaver stood suddenly, tipping his head. “I think you’re fighting for this one a little too hard, Lamont. What do you have resting on all this?”

“Nothing but my own reputation,” the other man barked back. “Which is better than yours after your little miracle the other day.” He raised his hands as if praising the heavens. “A gift from above, plopped down into your lap to hold as if it were a tiny kitten.”

“What are you trying to say?” Weaver strode forward, but found his way blocked by the chief. From the corner of his eye, he could see Rogers leave his own seat, ready to intervene as well. Weaver idly wondered if the man would have his back or side with the others.

The chief held his hand up, just shy of Weaver’s chest, but glared at Lamont. “That’s enough. Both of you. Weaver and Rogers are getting a _look_ at these cases.” He turned his gaze to Weaver. “You give it a thorough once over. If you find _anything_ that takes this out from the gang violence pile and puts it in with a serial, you bring it to my attention. If you find _nothing_ Lamont carries on. Is that understood?”

Every man in the room nodded, though Lamont tried to continue his grievances against the idea.

“That’s _settled_, then,” said the chief, turning his body in a way that would herd Lamont to the exit. “Shall we?”

The men left, shutting the door behind them and the noise from beyond their clear barrier began to subside. It wasn’t just the yelling that ended, most of the room’s bustle went along with it. Rogers nodded the way the men had gone. “Get the feeling all of that commotion was about this killer?”

“Hard to think anything else,” Weaver grunted as he sat again. He claimed the file Rogers had discarded. “Three files, two of us. We look at everything, swap over. We make note of any details that seem out of place.”

Rogers nodded sharply. “Right.” He pulled out a pad and pen from his desk and settled himself into a studious position. Weaver watched as the man angled his body, moving his truncated arm in deft motions that almost made the casual observer believe he had full use of both hands.

Weaver nodded at the gloved replica. “How’d it happen?” His partner looked up sharply, a curious expression on his face. Weaver nodded again. “Your hand.”

“Oh,” Rogers glanced down, then looked away. “Some loudmouthed idiot sliced me through. Doctors couldn’t save it.”

“Happen on the job?” Weaver couldn’t imagine any other circumstance that would allow an officer to continue working on the force.

“Uh…” His partner became suddenly distracted. Weaver wondered if it was the topic that caused the man’s mind to wander or if, like in Storybrooke, the people he knew here had the same kinds of difficulties recalling their pasts as he did. “Yes and no,” Rogers finally said. “I wasn’t on the clock.” There was a pause before he pointed at a paper in front of him. “Look.”

Weaver turned his gaze to where the other man’s finger rested, but couldn’t read the text. Years of filing paperwork told him exactly which line Rogers was indicating, he knew the line for the crime’s location even reading it upside down and backwards. “Doubt the location will give us anything.” He shrugged. “Gangs defend their territory.”

“Small territory,” Rogers huffed. “That’s just a block from where the other body was found.” He pointed to the file Weaver held.

Not all that surprised, Weaver flipped open the folder and scanned the details. “It wouldn’t surprise me-” Instantly he felt the blood drain from his body, sucked to the ground where he was certain it must be pooling at his feet. Desperation sent him scrambling for the third file, flipping it open with such speed the papers inside almost flew from his hands. His finger stabbed at the location on the page even as his eyes closed against it.

“What’s wrong?” Rogers looked over at him, suddenly concerned.

“You know that place I said my son was building?”

The other man nodded.

“It’s three blocks away.”

* *

It had taken over an hour to convince Rogers not to mention the connection the cases had with Weaver’s son and another hour after that to prove that there was enough doubt of gang violence for the cases to be transferred. Lamont was naturally furious and fought every suspicious detail that the pair pointed out, but Weaver had won in the end and the Lee Street murders had been handed over. Lamont then stormed from the captain’s office, shouting about the injustice of having his hard work given to an old, beaten detective who had fallen so low that he couldn’t do anything without a nursemaid. The process had been draining and tedious and Weaver’s impending appointment with Doctor Gorman hadn’t helped it along. 

Now he was sitting in the woman’s annoyingly comfortable chair, leg crossed over his knee, trying to keep his foot from bouncing out his eagerness to be home. He needed to be talking to Gideon, needed to get that little house of his moved to somewhere safer. This nonsense should be waiting.

Except that it couldn’t wait. The captain had made it abundantly clear that a single missed minute from one of these sessions would cost him his job, which would undoubtedly be the end of his career. His mind wandered to Gold and he tried to picture himself standing behind a counter, happily passing the day by fixing clocks, mending old clothing, restoring cheap artwork, and having the hours interrupted only by short visits from his wife and longer, more annoying walk ins from mister Barker. Weaver was better, he decided, even though whenever he was Gold, he was certain that the opposite was true. 

“So, Detective,” Gorman said as she took her seat. Her position seemed abnormal, her head somehow out of place on her shoulders. “How have things been since you returned to work? I hear you closed a cold case. That must have been quite the boost to morale.”

He huffed. “Do you mean the precinct's morale or mine? Because I highly doubt you’ve got tabs on every man in that building.” It was bait and he didn’t hide the fact, but she didn’t take it.

Gorman put on one of her fake smiles. “I mean yours, of course,” she said in a way that implied she might not. She tipped her head and again Weaver was struck with the notion that something about her was off, her shape somehow wrong. He stared hard as he tried to work it out, obviously giving himself away. The woman turned, glancing around the shelf behind her, then looked back at him. “Is something wrong, Detective?”

It was then that he noticed. The star was gone. “What happened to your little ornament?”

The woman put on a sheepish grin. “An accident,” she said quietly. “I was in a rush and caught my shoe in one of the wheels of my desk chair. Tripped and slammed right into it.”

“Sorry to hear that. I know it’s hard losing something that has been handed down to you,” Weaver told her honestly, watching her expression change to one of confusion. Another test. She hadn’t mentioned the background of the star, the nun in Storybrooke had, but Gorman said nothing to clarify her thought or his comment. 

“Things come and go,” Gorman offered instead. “And we are here to talk about you, so…” She flipped through her notebook. “Tell me about the dreams. Are you still having them?”

Weaver almost growled. “They’re not dreams. I close my eyes here and open them there. I’m awake.”

“For the ease of conversation…” Gorman reminded him with only a hint of frustration. They went through this every visit and every visit he refused to accept the term, just as he did with Hopper.

“Fine,” he announced as he gave in, thinking the sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could get home, though he knew all too well that wasn’t the way it actually worked.

“Is there anything you want to talk about? Something that happened in them since we last spoke?”

“Why are these ‘dreams’ so important to you?” Weaver treated the unwanted word like it was poison in his mouth. He dropped his leg and sat forward, lip curled in anger. “What happens in my home, while I’m asleep, has _no_ bearing on my performance at the job-”

“Did you sleep well last night?” The question was a punch to his gut and the woman’s expression told him that she _knew_ it would be.

Weaver looked out the window to give himself time to reclaim anything that would fly from his mouth. “I slept fine,” he insisted again, knowing it was a lie that she would catch. The woman had probably interviewed everyone in the damned station. _Rogers,_ his mind snarled at him. He should never have opened up to the man.

Gorman let out a little hum of uncertainty. “I understand that your type of work can take a lot out of a man in a day, Detective, but… and please don’t take this the wrong way… I wouldn’t say that you _look_ like someone who had a decent night of sleep before coming here today.”

“You sneak someone into my home with a camera to figure that out?” He snapped back, whipping his head around to glare at her and gesturing at the corner of the room as if a security camera were hanging there. “Or did you get your precinct spy to tell you everything?”

“It’s my job to know these things,” Gorman answered illusively.

Weaver huffed. He stared at her for a long time, waiting for her to say more, clinging to the hope that a confession would come, but it didn’t. “I was out last night,” he said once he’d given up on her response.

“Oh.” The surprise on the woman’s face was almost a worthy prize for his efforts. “Was there someone special-”

“My son.” Anticipating the next question, Weaver made sure to cut her off before she could even suggest that he had somehow cast Belle from his life. “He’d been going out late with a friend and I waited up to catch him coming home. Had to find out what he was up to.”

The woman made a note on her pad. The idea of such a tiny event in his life having enough significance to be a line in his file was almost enough to drive Weaver out the door. “I assume you spoke with him.” She looked up when she finished, expression blank.

“It was more of an interrogation,” Weaver admitted.

“What do you mean? Did something happen?” Gorman looked at him curiously.

Weaver lifted his hand and slapped it down on the arm rest. “You want the dirty scoop on my mind, Doctor? Here’s the headline.” He leaned forward again, his voice raspy in his anger. “I accused my boy of dealing drugs. Sat him down and grilled him about where he’d been and what he’d been doing. And you know why he hadn’t been home? He and his best friend were building a house together.” He leaned back in the chair again, the force of his movement almost making him bounce away from the cushion he reclined against. “So he took me out to see the place. We didn’t get back until almost dawn.”

“That is quite a lot there,” Gorman admitted. “What made you assume he had an issue with drugs?”

“He was sending packages to his friend,” Weaver told her, calm now, his switch flipped at only the mention of his son’s gifts and kindness, anger at his situation replaced with pride. “He was ordering the parts and sending them to her to keep me from finding out about it. I caught her passing him one one morning when I dropped him off at school.”

“Why did he have the packages sent to her?”

“He told me he didn’t want me to think he was leaving me,” Weaver admitted. “Apparently they’d been working for almost a year.”

Gorman actually put her pen down. “So, they began before the accident.”

“Yes.” Weaver was surprised at how touched he was by the woman’s silent statement of support. The accident wasn’t noteworthy, the grief, the loss of his wife, it was all his for that moment. His and his alone. Warmth from the unexpected act of kindness filled him, soothing aching muscles, releasing tension he hadn’t realized he’d built up since his arrival.

“And what do you think about this project?” She tipped her head curiously, her attention focused solely on him.

Weaver couldn’t help smiling. “I’m proud of him. Belle and I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

“I’m sorry,” Gorman said quickly, eyes blinking at him. “I thought you said you weren’t aware of your son’s project until last night.”

“I wasn’t.” Weaver blinked also, confusion filling him.

“But you just said you and your wife thought it was a good idea. Did you discuss it with her before the accident?”

Weaver closed his eyes, finally catching his slip. The damned interloper set him up, eased him into revealing more of his life with Belle. Somehow this infernal woman _always_ managed to drag him back to the “dreams.” He should have seen it coming. Cursing himself, he clenched his jaw, trying to internalize his reaction. “We discussed it last night,” he admitted with a sigh.

“In your dream, you mean,” Gorman amended.

“I mean we discussed it last night.” Weaver shot her a death glare, wishing she would leave the issue alone, but he knew from experience that once this can was opened, there was no putting the worms back in.

Gorman ignored his refusal to use the term she wanted. “So you decided to talk to your wife about seeing your son. Previously you’d said you had no intention of mentioning your life here. You said it would be too painful for her. Can you tell me what changed?”

“I said I didn’t want to hurt her and I thought this might,” Weaver reminded her, gesturing around the room as if the motion somehow indicated all of Hyperion Heights in a single movement. “I don’t want her heart broken over my being able to see Gideon while she can’t.”

“And what happened, exactly? What was her reaction?” Gorman’s hand traveled to her pen. The time for compassion had passed, she was back at work, back to the evaluation of his worthiness to be a part of functioning society.

Tired and beaten, Weaver finally surrendered. “I woke up in our house in Maine, talking about Gideon. That night, before we fell asleep, she said she wanted to know everything that was going on.” He shrugged. “So I told her.”

Gorman wrote something in her book. “And did you tell her everything?”

Weaver nodded once. “I told her about his life, what our son has been up to, described the house he was making...”

“Does she know that in here she didn’t survive the accident?” The woman’s pen hovered in place as if waiting only for her command to begin scribbling away every word that escaped him.

Weaver couldn’t meet her gaze and flicked his eyes down at the blue of his jeans, studying the fabric for any flaw that could be corrected. “We only talked about Gideon,” he repeated, wishing it would make her drop the subject, but knowing that the little trick wouldn’t actually work.

“So she doesn’t know that you believe you live a life without her.”

Anger boiled in Weaver to the point that he expected his skin to bubble under the pressure of it. “Of _course_ I didn’t tell her that,” he snapped. “Would _you_ want to hear someone you cared about telling you they even _imagine_ a life without you?”

“No one is completely responsible for their dreams.” Gorman tried to answer, but Weaver cut her off.

“Don’t give me any of that ‘subconscious mind’ shit,” he barked, shoving a finger in her direction. “I _don’t_ sit around and wonder about what my life would be like without my son, and I _couldn’t_ sit around and wonder what it would be like without my _wife_.”

“Your son knows you dream of her,” Gorman told him without batting an eyelash. Calm and collected, she rambled on in her usual, emotionless way. “You said you’ve talked about it some with him. What makes telling him any different from telling your wife?”

“Gideon sees these things differently. He has his life ahead of him… Friends, school…” As another distraction, he flicked at an imaginary speck on his pants leg, rubbed at the spot as if testing that the speck had detached, then dropped his hand to his lap with a thud. He had to stay for the entire appointment, he reminded himself. He had to stay, if not for himself, for Gideon. “It’s been an adjustment for both of us, but Gideon and I, we hold each other up differently. He’s my son. Belle is my _wife_. I shouldn’t have to explain the differences in those relationships to someone who made a career of digging around in the minds of others.”

“And your wife?” If Gorman caught the jab at her profession, she ignored it. “How do the two of you manage without Gideon?”

Just to throw her completely off guard, Weaver smiled and met her gaze. “Sex.” The word oozed from him, but to her credit, Gorman only blinked once, her composure unwavering. 

“Replacing one type of love with another isn’t unusual,” she told him flatly. “Though talking about your feelings with each other would be preferable-”

“That’s what the other shrink says.” Weaver let out a snort as he thought of Hopper.

“What was your day like there?” The question caught him off guard and Weaver looked up, eyebrow raised, forcing her to clarify. “What do you do in Storybrooke? How did the day go after you told her about Gideon?”

Weaver shook his head. “I mentioned it in the morning, but then we got up. She went to work in the library, I went to open the shop. There was in incident in town, a… family disagreement, let’s say. We didn’t get a chance to talk about Gideon again until that night, when everything died down.”

The woman’s pen flew over the paper, each scratch to the surface twice as loud as the one before. When she was done writing, she didn’t even look up at him, simply gazed down at whatever information had been recorded before her. “Can you tell me about what happened in town?”

“Family dispute,” Weaver told her casually, flicking his hand as if casting the fact aside. “A shopkeeper and his son were being threatened by the man’s brother. The boy contacted me, told me they were in trouble. I went to help.”

The pen froze. “I see.”

Eyes narrowing at the paper in the woman’s lap, Weaver snarled. “Care to share your insights with the ignorant?”

Gorman shook her head, a slight movement that was barely detectable. “I’m sorry. I admit I find it surprising that as a detective you haven’t made the obvious connection here.”

“Murders happen,” Weaver told her, unwilling to point out just how deeply the two cases _were_ connected. She was already judging every move he made, every thought that escaped him. He wasn’t about to give her fuel for her fire. “Just because an uncle was involved in both events-”

“I’m not talking about your recent case, Detective.” Gorman’s head tipped to the side again and her eyes softened. “I’m talking about the parallels between your reality here and the reality in your dream. Here an accident claimed the life of the woman you loved and nearly took your child from you, while in your dream a man has, in your own words, “threatened” a man and his son. I’m curious. Were their lives in danger?”

Weaver didn’t want to answer. He could see where she was taking this conversation and didn’t want to admit the truths that would be revealed.

“Detective?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

“So it is possible that your dreams are recreating your fears from your life here and arranging them in such a way that you can manage the emotion without facing it head on,” she told him. “Instead of a car, another man is trying to take the lives of a father and his son, but the father and son are still in danger of losing each other. This could very well be your grief making itself known. It’s an important step to understanding the phenomenon you are experiencing.”

Weaver thought about the two families and told himself that she was wrong. The Leones and the Kings were duplicates of each other, down to the dual flamboyant family friends with laid back partners who had positive outlooks on everything. The names were all different, the places changed, but the lives were the same. His dream wasn’t expressing grief over Belle’s loss or Gideon’s it was his mind’s way of working out the case. He shook his head. “The dream was about a case, nothing more,” he told her.

Gorman smiled warmly at him. She said nothing but her silence spoke volumes. Weaver thrust his mind backward, rehashing everything he’d said or thought in the final parts of their conversation, and his heart sank when he realized what he’d done.

“The first step in your healing process,” she told him kindly. “Is accepting the dream. You’ve taken a big step today, Detective, one you should be proud of.”

The very idea soured in Weaver’s stomach, pushing hatred for himself through every pore of his body and raising bile in his throat. There was no dream, he reminded himself as Gorman rattled on about progress and steps to be taken in the future. His wife was real. His son was real. His lives were _real_. It was a trick of this annoying gnat and nothing more. The only oddity was the overlap of his realities, characters playing the same parts under different names. If anything was a dream, it was _that_. He would let nothing and no one convince him otherwise.

* * *

The sound of the front door closing was barely audible among the clank of pots and pans, but Weaver’s trained ear caught it and he looked up from stove to see Tilly’s bright smile. 

“Hello, Detective,” she almost sang as she skipped her way over to him, lifted one of the spoons from the sauce pan and tasted the contents. Making an appreciative hum, she closed her eyes and declared the taste “lovely” before popping her eyes open again and trying to return the spoon to the container she’d stolen it from. “What else are we having?”

Weaver lightly slapped at her hand and pointed to the sink. “_We_ didn’t know how many people were coming for dinner tonight,” he scolded playfully. “But it’s pasta and vegetables. I can find something to add and stretch it out.” He swatted her hand again as she tried to peek under the lid at the steaming vegetables. “It’ll take ten times longer if you keep poking around.”

“Sorry,” Tilly grinned again and moved to the kitchen chair, flopping down.

From experience, Weaver caught the sound of a foot being lifted and barked out, “Feet down.” He heard a huff and the dramatic thwack of a boot on the floor and grinned to himself. “Any idea where my son might be?”

“He’s um… Well, he was right behind me…” Tilly stumbled uneasily over the words, making Weaver frown over his shoulder at her. She shrugged. “He stopped outside to talk to a friend from school. About a… project.” Her bright teeth flashed in a very false grin, but he let it slide.

“So long as he’s done when the food hits the table,” Weaver told her. “Otherwise I expect there won’t be any left.” He nodded at the cabinet that held their dishes and she took the hint, standing to remove a stack of plates.

“He should be in any minute, if he can work out what he’s going to say,” she told him as she began to set the table. “The two of them seem to have trouble communicating sometimes. It’s really awful, they should… get some practice in or something.”

Weaver turned a confused expression at her, trying to imagine what sort of project required practice in communication. “Are they making you give oral presentations in colleges these days?”

The girl sputtered, nearly dropping the last plate in her attempt to cover her reaction. “No, but those two should get to it already,” she said with determination. “Project’s going to take forever if they go on avoiding things at this rate.” Finished with the plates, she went for silverware and glasses as Weaver simply stared into the space between them, trying to make sense of her comments.

Procrastination wasn’t one of Gideon’s traits and Weaver worried over the implications of Tilly’s statement as he returned to the cooking. He’d had every intention of talking about moving the tiny home tonight over dinner, but wondered if the discussion shouldn’t be about putting the work on hold entirely if it was causing a delay in the young man’s studies. He knew Gideon had high hopes for a career in education, perhaps even a chance to become a professor himself one day, but he wouldn’t get where he wanted to go while he was distracted.

At that moment the front door opened again and Gideon called through the apartment. “Papa. Is it all right if Tilly comes for dinner?”

“I don’t know,” Weaver answered back dryly, trying to sound distracted as he purposefully made a clattering while stirring the sauce. “I wasn’t expecting three at the table tonight. I’d have to see if there’s enough food for the three of us first.” He turned to the table just as Gideon came in the kitchen, eyes wide as he saw Tilly already seated, fingers wiggling at him in greeting. “What do you think?” Weaver turned to the girl and held out the vegetables for her to inspect. “Is there enough to share with someone who’s decided to invite himself to dinner?”

Gideon rolled his eyes. “All right,” he huffed. “So I stopped on the way.” He shoved Tilly’s shoulder as he passed her to go to the refrigerator and pulled out a container of iced tea.

“Yes, my newly adopted daughter just told me you had to chat with a friend about a project.,” Weaver said as he started to serve up the food. Gideon made a face at the comment, showing he didn’t much care for his father’s unusual sense of humor, but didn’t say anything as he filled each glass on the table.

“Your Papa was asking if you were giving an oral report as part of the project.” Tilly’s grin widened as she spoke.

Gideon practically fell into the table, bashing his hip into the corner and stumbling into his chair. Somehow he managed to catch himself and save the jug of tea, barely getting it settled onto the table top before resting both arms on the surface to take a deep, steadying breath. “Seriously?” His head tipped up sharply to Tilly, who giggled at him.

“I only told him you were working on something together,” Tilly said with a pout. “It was your papa that decided you were preparing for an oral delivery. Great idea by the way.” She leaned into the table and poked a finger at him. “Think the two of you should get in a little more practice though.”

“Tilly!” Gideon almost shrieked, then swallowed as he narrowed his ayes at her. “It’s just a _project_. And it’s _not_ oral.”

Weaver looked from his son to Tilly and back again, brows wrinkled in curiosity. “Would one of you mind explaining to me why the concept of oral presentations seems to be so shocking to the youth of today?” Dinner served, he took his usual seat and nudged Gideon’s back toward him, waiting expectantly for a reply.

Tilly shrugged. “Not shocking,” she corrected. “We just don’t really do that sort of thing at school.” The last two words came with a meaningful hesitation that only confirmed Weaver’s suspicion that he was missing something incredibly important in this conversation.

“Right,” he said at last. “Well, I’m starting to think I got off this train a long time ago, so let’s just eat.” He thought he heard his son mutter something about losing the conversation at the beginning, but he couldn’t be sure. “I’m actually glad you’re both here,” Weaver told them once they’d all dug in to the meal. “I wanted to talk to you about the place you’re building.”

“It’s all bought and paid for.” The words rushed from Tilly’s mouth as quickly as her hand shot forward to try and catch his attention. “The crate was damaged in shipping and had to be replaced anyway. All we had to do was put a window in the dent and-”

Weaver smiled at her, shaking his head. “No, I trust you, Tilly,” he said simply, then looked at Gideon. “Both of you. What I want you to do is be careful. There have been incidents in that area recently and it’s not exactly in the safest of locations, no matter whose property it’s on or how much you trust the man letting you keep it there.”

Gideon frowned and lowered his fork from his mouth, speared broccoli still on the tines, forgotten. “What’s happened, Papa?” His voice was a whisper of concern, the light from his eyes receded and replaced with concern. The young man’s body drooped as he rasped out his second question,“Something serious?”

“I’ve been given a string of murders to investigate,” he told his son, hand rising from the table at the wrist to stall any other questions. “I can’t tell you any more than that, but I _will_ say that your little home is too close to for my comfort. I want to have it moved for you. Pick a new location and I’ll pay whatever the transport costs will be.”

Tilly’s wide eyes turned to Gideon, her sad expression pulling more questions from Weaver than giving him any answers. “It’s not ready,” she said when Gideon offered no response. “There’s still so much to do.”

Weaver shook his head while he swallowed down some pasta. Under the reality he was making them face his throat had turned dry and fought the food, even as the thick sauce tried to coat its path. “You can finish it elsewhere,” he told her with certainty. 

“There are things inside that are still loose,” Gideon tried to explain, his voice weak. “It will all have to be tied down or removed.” He looked up at his father. “She’s right. It’s not ready.”

“Then you get it ready,” Weaver told him, poking a finger at the table’s surface. “But you do it quickly and you stop going there at night. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Papa.” Gideon told him as Tilly nodded her own agreement.

The rest of the meal was eaten in relative quiet, each of the three talking only a little about their day while trying to avoid discussion of work or school. Small, funny stories held little amusement and, for some reason that Weaver couldn’t quite grasp, his son seemed quietly panicked. The young man’s mind drifted away easily and had to be pulled back to their talk with questions and verbal cues that returned him into their friendly bubble of safety. When dinner ended, he and Tilly offered to clear up and the two hovered by the sink, shoulders pressed firmly together, voices kept well below a hushed whisper. Respecting their need for privacy, Weaver left them to it, deciding that spending some time with the television was the best way to allow the pair some time of their own.

He settled onto the couch and put on his antiques show, quickly becoming wrapped up in the stories behind each piece. Two worthless items were discussed and a single treasure uncovered before Gideon came through the room and announced he was going to drive Tilly back to her dorm.

Weaver blinked up at him. “Are you all right, son?”

Gideon sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah,” he said finally. “It’s just… We both know someone who lives down the street from where we’re working.” He gave a sad shrug. “We’re worried is all.”

“I’m going to do everything I can,” Weaver promised, reaching up and grasping his son’s hand to give it a squeeze. He thought about housing in the area, realized that the apartments offered above the shops in that district were usually run down, rotten places, filled with the scum of the city. “Was this friend helping you?”

“No. Just passes by sometimes,” Gideon told him. “Stops in to see how things are going. He works nights and I’ve been… Well, I’ve been keeping an eye out for him. Walking him home. Someone stole his tips once, so…”

Things were starting to make sense now. Gideon and Tilly hadn’t only picked that location for the sake of convenience, they were watching out for their friend, giving him a place to check in, supporting him after his traumatic event. Weaver stood and met Gideon’s eyes, moving a hand to the back of the younger man’s neck in a pat of support. He loved his son even more in that moment, if such a thing were even possible. “You want me to send someone to check in on him? I can-”

Gideon shook his head. “Whatever you do is going to compromise the investigation you’re starting now,” he said. The boy was too smart for his own good, really. He’d put all the pieces together without having to be told. “Your situation’s compromised enough with our place being there, I don’t want to hand you any more complications.”

Weaver’s lips curled up in a sad smile. “I’ll give you a few safe routes to pass on,” he said. “How about that? Places where he can point out security cameras to anyone who approaches him? You can tell him I’ll be watching them.”

“Thanks,” Gideon returned the smile, but it didn’t lift the sadness from his eyes. He left then, Tilly trailing behind with a small wave of farewell. Weaver watched out of the window as the two got into the car and the tail lights receded into the distance. He thought about going to bed, knowing that he would easily drop from exhaustion, but decided to return to the sofa and the display of random relics that were taking up his television screen. 

Stretching out on the couch, Weaver watched as people droned on about vases, musical instruments, old art, and pieces of furniture. His eyes grew heavy and he began to imagine the items on the screen as trinkets in Gold’s shop, held up before him by Belle’s delicate fingers. He didn’t fight sleep when it finally came, merely floated into the hope of holding those lovely hands once more.

* * Gold * *

Sunlight slanted in through the window, waking Gold with its brightness. He felt a hand on his chest, fingers tracing an unusual line over his skin, and opened one eye to take in Belle’s concerned expression. Her eyes followed the movement of her touch around the white tape of his bandages until he shifted and her hand pulled away, jerking from him as if she was afraid of being scalded.

“You don’t have to stop,” he whispered. “That was nice.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” she answered, though she lowered her hand again, returning it to where it had been, resting it gently against him.

Gold gave her a warm smile. “Doesn’t hurt,” he said. 

There was a long pause before Belle spoke again. “I made breakfast,” she told him at last. “It’s downstairs. Do you want me to bring it up?”

“No, I’ll come down.” He lifted an arm to guide her face toward his. Their foreheads touched and he nuzzled at her, tilting his head to catch her lips in his own. When the kiss broke he gave her the best wicked grin that he could manage. “One good thing to come from all of this is the upcoming sponge bath.”

That broke the mood of sadness between them. Belle let out a yelp of mock surprise and whacked his leg with the back of her hand. “Mister Gold, you are insatiable!”

“Are you going to pretend you hadn’t thought of it, Missus Gold?” He raised his eyebrows at her and let his hand wander where it could reach, caressing her thigh and trying to climb to where he knew she held proof of her desire for him.

“Breakfast first,” she huffed, standing up and flourishing a robe at him. “Then your medicine and _then_ we’ll see where the morning takes us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gerald means "rule of the spear" and Lamont means "law man."


End file.
